


BRUTUS.

by spookylives



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 3
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Original Character(s), Oral Sex, Slow Burn, Vaason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:14:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 109,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25236763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookylives/pseuds/spookylives
Summary: Jason has been forsaken by the Rakyat, by Citra especially. Served like a lamb to slaughter to the very man he thought he would kill, Snow White has no choice but to adapt to a life out of his control. Vaas appears more than happy to take him on, stringing him along as if it is all some game. They both find themselves rather powerless these days, the forces at work more or less serving against their self interest. How much more can Jason lose before he becomes like Vaas? How far is the mad man willing to push him to get what he wants? What is it that he wants?Explicit for Canon-typical violence. Vaason heavily implied with the occasional psychological and physical torture.
Relationships: Jason Brody & Vaas Montenegro, Jason Brody/Vaas Montenegro, Vaason - Relationship
Comments: 78
Kudos: 174





	1. Omnium Rerum.

**Author's Note:**

> I understand that there is speculation of Vaas's past and backstory in the new game. However, I have had this particular piece in my mind for years and I think it is high time I shared it. Far Cry 3 is always going to hold a special place in my heart. Before reading please know this is all my interpretation and written with a few canon divergent segments. 
> 
> Enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omnium Rerum (latin) - Of all things.

**FUCK. HUNT. KILL.**

  
It is a mantra in his mind, it beats his temples and tightens his throat. He is parched, dehydrated, knocking on death’s door but blissfully unaware of it. All he can think of is Citra. The twists of her hair, how the beads in them catch in the flesh of his arm as it is held tightly around her back. The sensation stings. A village elder begins to sing. He doesn’t even realize the whole tribe is watching them fornicate. The full moon of Citra’s breasts, the soft ebony of her thighs around his naked waist. Fucking her is heavenly. Fucking her is like nothing he has ever had with Liza or Claudia or Mary or any other woman who entertained his fancies back home. Citra is God. He doesn’t know it, but that tea she gave him was spiked. Spiked with something that would have made the Viking’s Berserker look like a stroll down Central Park. 

**FUCK. HUNT. EAT. FUCK. HUNT. KILL.**

He’s bleeding. An open wound engages itself over his back like the craters left from a mighty earthquake. He is marked, branded, in more places than just the ink on his arm. He doesn’t know it but he is crying, his eyes streaming so much that he has to pause to wipe them right before he takes out another low life pirate with a notch of his bow. He cries not because he is moved, not because he is sad for his lost brother, but because she had given him another one of those magic inhalants to make him docile. His eyes are reacting to the foreign pounder in the creases of his lids, making them burn and leak. This was how she had coerced him into doing this. This was how she sent him to the tyrant. 

  
  


**\- X -**

These muscles are immovable steel. They bulge with impact, throng with the device of his heart and blood vessels. They are playing that fucking club music, the one song with the delirious bass and the hook that sounds like a stormtrooper shooting. The comparison makes him sad because he remembers  _ Star Wars _ is Riley’s most favorite thing in the world. The sadness is short-lived when he finds himself sliding a dagger into the jugular of a lazy sniper. He is floating over his own body, watching it operate as an audience member like one of those cheesy first persons Riley used to play. He is near. The bastard who gutted his brother. The tyrant, the king, the psychopath. 

**_“ I FINK YOU FREAKY AND I LIKE YOU A LOT. I FINK YOU FREAKY---”_ **

When he lands within the compound it takes all of his strength not to start screaming. His throat feels raw, threatened, and when he realizes that his attack was expected and the troops were rallied.  __ God, he finally screams. Screams not in rage or in fear, but triumph. Some poor fuck in a red bandana collapses when Jason Brody rams into him from above. One by one they die by his hand. Some with gunfire, others with a knife throw or a well-placed snap to the jugular. Killing is natural. It is the air that enters his lungs, it exchanges itself through his tearing muscles and pooling sweat. Reaching the compound door feels like satisfying a dry and creeping itch. The doors open with that strange mechanical draw all rusted over systems have. Someone is doing it. Someone knows he is here. Someone is welcoming him in. 

“--VAAS! VAAS, WHERE ARE YOU!?” 

Vaulting around the corner actually makes his knees strain. It has now been twelve hours since his last meal. Three since he had anything suitable enough to wet his palate and cleanse the burning sensation that ruminates through his throat and makes his tongue feel as if he’s just licked the inside of a dryer’s lint trap. His senses are dulled, his fingers sliding and struggling to grip the magazine into its proper place in the machine gun. It is for this reason that he hardly notices the knife going into his collar bone. 

“---peekaboo, motherfucker!” 

And for what its worth the pain is real, it is hot and incomprehensible and savage. It blurs his vision, it makes him weak and above all, it turns the red in this man’s shirt into a flame with no source. Before he collapses, he can see Vaas standing impartial and cold. He is not mad, not angry, but mildly inconvenienced. When Jason rolls on his back, the pain there alights and completely eclipses the new wound under his collarbone. He wants to scream, has to scream, but the sounds that come from him are choked and long-winded. And here is Vaas, standing over him as if Jason were an insect with pulled out feelers. Whatever is in his system, whatever it was this man’s sister had given him, he’s starting to overdose. Between his lips, a white foam begins to sputter. The muscles in his arms begin to convulse, and he can see his beloved tattau reaching itself toward the man in front of him. He wants to kill. He wants to maim. He wants to hunt. 

“--Jesus Christ!” 

It takes a moment for Jason to realize that it was not Vaas who said this. The voice is hoarser, older, and is coming from a higher place. This voice belongs to the man who opened the gate. Vaas’s green eyes trail away from Jason and look to the voice, a sense of understanding and collection resonating in them that Jason has never seen before. Jason’s hand is outstretched far enough to grip this man’s damaged army boot and Vaas kicks it away with the same effort it would take to swat a fly. But as quickly as Vaas came he is gone, replaced with the iridescent shine of someone else’s pilot sunglasses and another red bandana. 

“---oh he’s---he’s dying.” 

“--that’s the fucking point.” Vaas says and Jason has to crane his neck and place his cheek to the ground to see him scratch the blunt end of a pistol down the side of his shaved head. The other man, the one with the shiny glasses and the smoker’s voice begins to press down on Jason’s chest in quick rhythmic pulses. He says something about shock. He says something about how Vaas should have let him handle it and how he needs the gringo alive. Jason doesn’t keep long enough to hear Vaas respond though. His body, starving, dehydrated and overdosing, mercifully shuts itself down. He barely has the consciousness to recognize that there are people carrying him off and away from his target. 


	2. Vixere.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vixere - They Lived. 
> 
> "They lived as the Romans did, but are now dead."   
> Horace on the the Catilinarian conspiracy.

When Jason awoke, he had made the rather childish assumption that he was sitting at the epicenter of a large oven. He thought of the witch's hut in _Hansel and Gretel,_ the blackened bones of lost children and woodland creatures. This wasn't helped by the fact that this room was completely dark, creating a buoyant impression of senselessness. Smell was the only thing that existed here and it was a rank of urine and shut-in cellar air. He was lucid enough to realize he was lying on something like a makeshift cot, his head propped up by a pillow that had lost its firm and support after years of holding tired heads. The bed was old canvas and when he moved from it, he could feel the cold and unforgiving surface of concrete that had never before seen the sun. He would lie on this slab of stone for most of his stay, resting his perspired forehead against it to give himself a much-needed reprieve from fever. _Fever. Yes, he was ill._ So ill in fact, that the new accompanied smell he sensed was his own vomit. Couple the stench with the unforgiving Tropical heat of the Rook Islands and you had an effortless torture chamber. 

Now there was a blinding light, it made his head ache and his eyes wince. When the door opened, Jason saw just enough light creep out to realize that his little slice of hell was somewhere underground. There were stairs, damaged and rickety that led up to a metal door that slammed regardless of whether or not you shut it with force. Jason knew this because he was starting to recall the many times he had heard it open and shut again. Whatever the material, the door was made to be soundproof, disorientating the prisoner into a sense of confusion. There was no sunlight, no moon shade or island breeze, no possible description or tell-tale for the fancies of Father Time. _Here are where the Cosmic Nomads would say The Lions Weep._

**“** Good Morning, Jason. **”**

The voice was calm, if he hadn't have been expecting it, it would have been lost within the sound of the light switch flipping on and the automatic hum of the old electric wires going back to work. The dull grey and hogwash interior of the holding cell became visible. Once upon a time, this was a cave, a halfshell kind of place that had been licked clean into the earth by the influence of the ocean. Now that the tide had receded and the island was made, man had turned it into a gross parody of its former self. Sleet metal from abandoned ships propped up the walls so they wouldn't collapse. You could still catch the stray snatch of ivy plants crawling down the walls, nature's last-ditch effort to claim what was once her’s over forced over concrete. Driftwood and forgotten steel lined a stairway that stopped just before two iron-clad cages that swung inwards and locked with a padlock and key. Jason rested in the one right up against the wall, the very last cell. 

**"** \---wh--wha-- **"**

That was all Jason’s abused and dry throat could muster. He brought his tongue, which felt two sizes too big for his mouth, over his lips. Surprisingly he could still taste and what he could detect was something sterile and balmy. Something like penicillin or pain reliever, nothing over the counter but medicinal just the same. Lying here, one cheek resting against the sad excuse for a pillow, he began to recollect. He had not been alone here. Not entirely at least, for he was beginning to piece together the small fragments of consciousness he had retained between now and his first night here. 

**“** \---you have sopa, hijo. I should have known you couldn’t handle solids yet. My apologies. **”**

Yes. There had been meat before, it was brought in on a little wooden platter with no utensils. What remained of that meal was now bunched up and drenched in stomach acid in the far corner. It was then that Jason realized how long he had been lying on his stomach. When he went to turn and see who it was speaking to him, he found the pain in his back was something like a scream. 

**“** \-- _aye. Aye._ I’m coming. Don’t do something stupid. **”**

Obediently, Jason stopped trying to turn, fists clenching in and out of a vice as he heard keys begin to jingle. The footsteps that followed were methodical and slow, as if they were frightened of imbalance. When another tray was rested beside him, Jason could see a canteen and a wide mouth wooden bowl with a matching ladle. Instinctively he reached for the water but a rough and calloused hand stopped him. The touch was gentle as if it was meant to reprimand a small child. 

**“** \--I know. You’re thirsty. But we must check that wound of yours. No sense wasting the resources if you’re due to die of infection. **”**

Those same rugged hands gently pushed him onto his side. 

Jason screamed. 

**“** \--I know. I know. But I told you, lie on your side. You have _two wounds_. **”**

The memory of Vaas damn near breaking his sternum came flooding back to him like a hard and unforgiving fist to the jaw. He had been there, standing at the precipice of life and death. What came after that was a fermented blur. He could just barely catch the impressions of the night before but it seemed distant. Almost as if he were trying to remember the taste of a favorite meal. He remembered Citra, her ritual garb and paint. She brought a shallow cup to his lips, slowly beckoned him to drink. Then he had been face down on something hard and immovable, stone most likely. Two men held his arms down even though they had already been secured with ropes. Citra was behind him, chanting something in a dialect that sounded like it came from the tongues of snakes. 

_"---and you won't fail me a second time, Jason. You are strong. Powerful. You will fulfill your destiny."_

It was hard to organize what killings happened after that. His one-man murder spree was starting to bleed together like soaking tea leaves. Hard to say who died first, second and third. All he knew was that Keith had been saved, he retrieved the knife and then---Liza. Something had happened with Liza. Just then something cool and malleable had come into contact with the wound on his sternum, a cotton ball soaked in peroxide held in place by two chopsticks. It stung but it was a manageable sting, the kind of pain you can get through with a few choice swear words. 

**“** \---Vaas really let you off easy with this one, huh? Didn’t break the bone. Your mama must have had you drink your milk. Good strong bones. **”**

The smile on this man’s face made the crow’s feet beside his eyes pile and ridge together. He had the kind of face you would see on the covers of _Men’s Health_ and retirement brochures. Perhaps it was handsome once upon of time, the features still dignified with sunkissed skin and angled out bone structures. But the laugh lines and subtle greying at the temples betrayed this sense of prestige. Here was a man who worked for a living, a man whose calloused fingers had mastered the trade of manual labor in early adolescence. He had that stereotypical Dad bod, trim but not fit, a semi-thick ponytail filled with salt and pepper hair gripping at the back of his neck. 

**“** \---I think we feed you before we tackle the big one. I brought you a good bone broth, see if you can keep it down. **”**

Before Jason could really protest or think to wonder if he was being drugged, a wooden ladle was carefully perched at the opening of his lips. He could just register that this spoon had several indentations at the cusp, teeth marks where other poor forgotten souls had been forced to drink from its contents. The pain in his stomach, the _pure hunger_ , was enough to make him forget about this. The taste was nothing extraordinary if not salty. He was reminded that this was a place that had not yet familiarized itself with the fine culinary extravagancies of tabasco and paprika. Regardless, the warmness of the soup made his throat soothe. He heartedly accepted the next spoonful and then the next after that. 

**“** \--it’s good, no? Better than the meat? **”**

**“** \---yeah--it’s--- it’s good. **”**

Jason was surprised at the sound of his own voice and by the looks of it, his caretaker was too. The grin this man wore was unmistakably genuine. As he turned to rest the now-empty bowl back on the tray, Jason couldn’t help but come up with the intrusive thought of kindness. _Kind. You’re a kind person. The last one on Rook._

**“** Good enough to bring your voice back. I’ll attribute that to my good cooking. **”**

**“** \---who are you? **”**

**“** Carlos. You are Jason. Jason Brody. **”**

Jason paused at that, head sliding back on the pillow but not so far as to disturb his throbbing back. He didn’t like that, this idea that almost everyone in this godforsaken place could fully name him. Jason Brody wasn’t a person anymore. It was a warrior, an enemy, or a threat. He thought of the Pirates that manned every outpost he took. _Oh God! It's Jason Fucking Brody!_ The way they said it you would have thought they were watching the nukes drop. It was just a few days ago that he felt that revelation was a good thing. It made him feel powerful, unstoppable. Now it made him feel like a novel action figure on a store shelf. _Shiny, plastic, unyielding, marketed, and fake._ How fitting it would be that his first human interaction since this whole mess started would remind him how far his emotional psyche had been stripped bare. He couldn't even meet someone on a regular basis anymore. Imagine what it would be like if he ever made it home. He didn’t want to think of that. 

**“** \---if you know who I am then why are you helping me? **”**

**“** Self-interest, of course. **”**

Jason went to laugh but realized taking a breath to do so brought great pain to his back. He coughed instead, which was ten times worse. When Carlos gave him the water from the canteen, he used the same bowl as the soup. The taste of leftover bone broth still ruminated in the water as he drunk. 

**“** \--you’re lucky he didn’t pop a lung. **”**

**“** \--yeah, man I’m the luckiest guy in the world **.”** Jason sipped another bowl full of water, musing on the fact that it was lukewarm and still reminiscent of salt. Stupidly he thought of how Starbucks used to give out free cups of water and ice back home. _Wow, I really am a white boy._ What he wouldn’t do for something cold and refreshing.

 **“** \---what the fuck is wrong with my back? **”**

**“** \---O se faalumaina. **”**

**“** English would be great. **”**

**"** \--it is custom with the natives here. You must forgive me for my limited knowledge. **"**

The fact that Carlos had gone out of his way to call the Rakyat ' _the natives_ ' made Jason give pause. Everyone he had met up to this point who was not affiliated with them had proven themselves to be an enemy. Anyone not wearing the traditional garb or blue was automatically assumed to be another target to hit. That was the beauty of Rook, after all. People were transparent here, presenting their intentions and affiliations as if they were inherited features. The same could not be said of the people in California, the bankers, and the ex-girlfriends of the world. _His people._

**"** \--you're with Vaas. You're a pirate. **"**

**"** \--I am with myself. Not a pirate, just a man. I am Carlos. You are Jason. **"**

Carlos's rugged hands gently flattened themselves against Jason's left bicep, guiding him downwards so that he would rest once again on his stomach. Jason did so, realizing that Carlos had armed himself with a new cotton ball drenched in peroxide. With a touch of hesitance this time, Jason did as he was told, only barely realizing that he was shirtless. 

**"** \--you must forgive me for this. **"**

Searing hot pain exploded on Jason's back, an agony so great that it made him buck backward and deeper into the wave of hurt. Carlos hadn't just used that tiny cotton ball of peroxide, he had dumped a canister of it. Jason’s nostrils filled with the stench of uninhibited alcohol, a smell that made his eyes water and his lower lip duck under his teeth. Carlos combated this with a damp towel, draping it over Jason's tortured back in its entirety. The wound, he now realized, was on every inch of his skin there. 

**"** \--- _fuck._ Holy shit. _Fuck._ **"**

**"** \--I'm sorry. It was so much worse when you came _, hijo._ Really, it was. A miracle the infection didn't kill you. **"**

The irony of the word _miracle_ was not wasted on Jason. It was a word that was not embedded within the Rakyat culture. They were a people who lauded action, greatness and valor. Their Gods did not look over them with awe or love. They watched them like vindictive children shaking an ant farm. The world in the eyes of the Rakyat warrior was callous and cruel, harboring the need for loyalty and prestige amongst their ranks. Life was suffering, _yes_ , but there was a reason for it. The tattau stung a little but at the very least it represented an accomplishment, a learned skill. This? This was torture. Torture that had had to have taken hours or even days to complete. For what purpose would Citra, or her people have to torture him? Actions. The world exists on the axis of human action. _The World is a diagonal, I am the balancing point._

**“** \--pain reliever, hijo. Pain relief. **”**

Carlos cupped a hand of pills to Jason's mouth and urged him to open. 

**"** \--you couldn't give me this shit before dumping a fuckton of alcohol on me? **"** Jason took the pills in his mouth then the water that followed. 

**"** Pain is a very good teacher, Jason. She teaches us our hardest lessons **."**

Jason rested his cheek back onto the pillow, chest rising and falling with the sheer exertion of emotion. 

**"** \--but-- _fuck_ \---but why? _Why?_ **"**

Carlos shook his head, re-wetting the towel with the ladel and returning back to Jason's sight. 

**"-** -Jason, _I don't know._ I don't understand these people. I don't understand their customs. You need to talk with someone who does. You need to talk with one of them. **"**

**"** \---fuck them. _Fuck them all._ **"**

**"** I agree, hijo. The Rakyat can be cruel. I know this more than anyone. **"**

**"** \--and the fucking pirates are better? _Vaas_ is better? **"**

**"** There are no villains in life, Jason. There are no heroes either, I am afraid. There are only actions. Actions that lead to the paths we take in life. **"**

**"** \--I didn't come here for philosophy. **"**

**"** No? Then why did you come to the islands? For pleasure? Fun? **"**

Jason stayed silent, thinking over the last night in the club in quick succession. The music. The drinks. The women. It all seemed decades ago. _Why did you come here? What kind of man are you, Jason?_ He buried his head in the pillow, breathed in the scent of dust and dried blood. Those pain relievers must have had a sedative to them. He was out like a light. 

  
  


**\- X -**

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune of being exposed to Rakyat culture would learn very quickly to respect their elders. Elders ate first even if they hadn't participated in the hunt. Children were born with the explicit purpose to take care of their parents and grandparents when they became too feeble to do so. The image of the pinched face grandmother with the iron cane is one synonymous with childhood. Morals that are instilled in us at an impressionable age persist long into adulthood. They live on like weeds unattended in a garden, roping through the concrete of experience and lived knowledge. This was why Vaas entertained Carlos as much as he did. There was a part of him, however dormant, that still had the allure to be culturally docile. 

Until now, Carlos’s presence had never been anything out of the ordinary. Carlos, who was old enough to be the grandfather to a good deal of the men on this compound, often ordered them around in the bossman's absence. His status and their tolerance of him was usual because he had simply always been there. Having worked for Volker before Vaas's eventual takeover, he had joined this section of the pirates the same way your mother might gift you grandma's fine jewelry. 

_"Watch this one._ " Hoyt had said, lighting a cigar. " _He's a loose fucking canon but he gets the job done._ " 

And watch Vaas Carlos had certainly done. Rarely was he not included in their little talks with Volker. Even more rarely was he not trailing behind Vaas if he just so happened to find himself on this side of the island again. Vaas's compound was as much Carlos's as it was his. It was here that the infirmary was located and it was here that Carlos would care for you if you were on your ass. Carlos became a cog in the machine, a necessary component of this operation. In a quiet way, he was a reprieve for the men of this trade. He spoke softly, treated wounds rather than gave them. 

When Carlos had asked Vaas to spare Jason Brody, it was more of a shock that an inconvenience. Here was a man who had faded into the background of the compound, a man who had become as familiar and non-assuming as the paint you could see chipping on the edges of the shack doors. How often Vaas would forget this man had the means to want anything. To him, Carlos Del Reyes was a walking notepad, a lasting earpiece that went from here all the way to Hoyt Volker. 

_Hoyt says this. Tell Hoyt this. Don't forget, send Hoyt that._

He had assumed the man's interest in Jason spread no farther than a novelty reflection. He wanted to study him the same way archeologists wanted to stick pins in the wings of a monarch. He wanted to break him, find the necessary information. A white boy indoctrinated into the ways and customs of the jungle people was simply unheard of. These were people who taught their children words like Pākehā and Pālagi, words synonymous in the English language with white Pig and devil. Their acceptance of Jason coupled with the speed in which they had done it, was indicative only of their desperation. Their numbers were so dwindling that they had started to accept help from the very people they had grown up to hate. Imagine what the ancestors would think if they knew their grandchildren were praising a colonizer. _You had to laugh at the irony. Really._

**"** \--he isn't doing well. **"**

Carlos's saying of this was coded. Everyone here almost always spoke Spanish or some bastardized version of Samoan. Speaking English meant something was horribly wrong or outrageously professional. Some doughy-headed fuck turned around and rested two dulls eyes over them. When he blurted out a half-witted _'Que_ ?' Vaas nearly dislocated his shoulder when he pushed him away with the added counteractive: _you shut the fuck up._

**"** \--and what did you fucking expect? **"** Vaas retorted, taking a cigar from his teeth and snuffing the ashes against the bamboo of an occupied cage. **"-** \--he's carved up like a fucking ham. High off jungle pussy and whatever else. Gringo should be singing his hallelujahs and Hail-Marys cause Jesus must really, really love him. **"**

**“** \--you misunderstand. **”** Carlos began, casting an unsympathetic look down toward a middle-aged hostage with a Rolex watch. This man looked at Vaas as if he were his messiah, swollen fingers curving around his left boot as he jibbered on in Russian. Vaas paid no notice. Neither did Carlos.  
  


**“** \--his wounds are not superficial, he’s never going to be a swimsuit model. **”**

Vaas laughed, Carlos took this as a perfect opportunity to continue.

  
**“** \--I mean his morale. He doesn’t understand what’s happened to him **.”** When Vaas laughed again, Carlos wasn’t as pleased. **“** \---I think it’d be best if he heard it from you. **”**

Vaas gave his contemporary a blank stare, his eyebrows knit in something that looked like an accusation. Carlos continued. 

**"** I am not of these people. I don't understand his torture or why he could have received it. But you **\--"**

**"** I am not here to be Jason Brody's fucking therapist. You wanted a pet white boy, you need to take responsibility and keep it fed and happy. Step the fuck up or I put it down. **"**

**"--** I understand that, Vaas but you must realize that in order for him to serve us, he must see his true enemy. He must comprehend the wrongs that have been done to him. I don't think there is anyone else who can do that. **"**

Just then Mr.Rolex man started screaming in his broken English. _I have wife. Children. Please._ He kissed Vaas's boots from his cage, a black and bruised over eye gleaming in the low light of a setting sun. 

**"--** can you fucking believe it? Been trying to get this asshole to tell me about his business trip all day, only to find out he's fucking bilingual. _Very cute._ **"**

When Vaas shot Mr.Rolex man the sound the gun made ruminated throughout the entire compound. The birds roosting in the trees did not scatter, they had long ago realized the gunfire was not toward them. Pirates continued to jive and joke, two of them fighting and duking it out inside a ring made of ropes pulled out from fishing boats. Vaas kneeled down toward the fresh corpse, his bloodied and abused hand still circled around his ankle. Vaas took the watch, studied it. 

**"--** this is a nice fucking watch, yeah? **"**

  
  


**\- X -**

One never truly gets used to the stench humans make. You think there would come a time when the senses become obsolete, that they accustom themselves to familiar smells like slipping on old shoes but not so much. The smell in the air was pungent, sour, the unmistakable rank of bile and sweat. How Carlos managed to stand to be in here an hour or so a day amazed him. 

**"--** well Jason Brody is certainly here. _Smells like shit._ **"**

The chains rattling told him that Jason not only recognized his voice but was fucking lucid. Carlos had him standing up in his cage, back towards them and his arms spread outward like Jesus on his cross. His legs, which were remarkably lax at the knees, remained free. A rooky's mistake but he told himself that Carlos hadn't made a habit of keeping prisoners. They would discuss this later. Thoroughly. 

**"--** Vaas. **"**

**"** Si, Si. How are you today, Jason? Very good, _very comfortable_? **"**

**"** FUCK YOU! **"**

**"** Not on the first date, Guapo. _Please._ Let's at least have dinner first. **"**

**"--** Vaas is here to help you, Jason. Please. Remember what I told you. **"** Carlos's voice shook which was not entirely uncharacteristic for him. Again, Vaas didn't exactly care for the idea that him and Carlos had been talking, but the situation was already bizarre enough without getting into formalities. Vaas was interested now, eyes going directly toward that large piece of cloth draped over Jason's back. 

**"** I don't need fucking help from some psycho who **\--"**

**"** Excuse me? Why so fucking rude? You are guest in my house and you call me names and stink up my fucking basement? **"**

Carlos realized then that both of them would have the energy to continue whatever the hell this exchange was. Given Vaas's quick start to anger, he found it fascinating that he hadn't started throwing punches yet. He decided not to chance his luck any more than necessary and got right to business. When he slowly removed the cheesecloth that had been acting as Jason Brody's second skin, he was halfway surprised at the silence that followed. When he studied Vaas, he almost expected to see a sense of pride or victory in him. What he saw was completely the opposite. 

The wound, if you could even call it that, was huge. Even between the cracks of infected skin and raised over scab, you could see the geometric shapes that made up the artist's design. It didn't take long for Vaas to recognize this as his sister's hand. The knife work was impeccable as always, keen but just shallow enough not to pierce the delicate strands of muscle just beneath the skin. It was beautiful in its own macabre way, mesmerizing the same way hurricanes and tornadoes are. Even now his brain was making the necessary correlations and meanings. Everything in this scar was a meaning, a story more like. There was a betrayal here, a sense of wounded pride there. Citra was angry. For what he could guess on one hand. 

**"** Jason, where is Lacey? **"**

Jason looked visibly tired, his arms growing lax. _Why was Vaas like this?_ **"---** who the hell is _Lacey_? **"**

**"** The puta with the dumbass scarf. _Your lady friend_ ** _._ " **

**"** Liza?! **"**

**"** That's what I fucking said, yeah. **"**

**“** Why the fuck would I tell you that **?”**

**“** Oh, I _dunno--_ **”**

When Vaas made his first steps towards Jason, the white boy physically lurched at the sound they made. As if he could undo these chains by sheer force of will and hatred, as if he truly believed he had a chance to fight off his adversary if they were on even playing grounds. 

**"** \--I see her here. **"**

Vaas pressed a thumb right into a geometric prism that circled around Jason's shoulder blade, a wet and raw space of flesh that had not the time to scab over. Jason practically screeched. 

**"** \---and I see her here. **"**

He followed the line down toward the center of Jason's spine, opening up three new places beside it. Carlos was quick to attempt to grab Vaas by the arm but was shrugged away. It was too late, Vaas had managed his way around Jason so that his chin rested on the other man’s shoulder, one arm snaking around his bicep to catch that fresh wound he left right over the collar bone. **"** \---but this one is me **."**

With no other option, Jason pushed back against Vaas with all the power left in his legs. Vaas went back but laughing, the collision with the back of Jason's head had caused his nose to start bleeding. 

**"-** -oh FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU **!"** Jason screeched.

Vaas was somehow in front of Jason now, Carlos quickly reassessing the damage done and reapplying the cheesecloth. Seeing Vaas in front of him made it all the more worse though. He was pulling on his restraints, arms going backward so that they looked as if he were a jet taking flight.

**"** \--fuck me? Fuck me? _**FUCK ME!?! FUCK ME!?!**_ NO, FUCK CITRA? _**FUCK MY FUCKING SISTER?**_ FUCK LACEY? FUCK THE WHOLE FUCKING ISLAND! _ **FUCK ME!?!**_ **"** They were face to face now, the blood from Vaas's nose resting vicariously on Jason's. His damaged and heavily bandaged hands came to rest on either side of Jason's face, forcing eye contact. **"---** no, amigo. No. Fuck you. Truly. Fuck you. Do you even fucking realize? Do you have any idea in your little pretty white boy head what you have done? **"**

Jason had been screaming the entire time but stopped at that, the blood loss and the sheer white shock of pain making him docile and complacent. **"--** I've haven't done anything to her. I didn't do anything **. "**

**"** Oh, see? That's the fucking thing. **"** Vaas said, looking straight at Jason. **"---** you didn't do something. _You told Citra no **."**_ The last part was horrifically poignant, the word no coming off his tongue like the poison of a serpent. And it was then that he saw the telltale sign of recognition in Jason's eyes, the recollection of a memory or something previously unstudied. His hands slid down Jason's face, rested on the muscles that ended his neck and started the shoulders. 

**"--** I didn't---I didn't want to **\--"**

**"** See, but that doesn't matter to her, does it? It doesn't fucking matter what you want or what you need. No, no, no. Please. It doesn't matter **."**

**"--** Liza---Liza **."**

"Dead. Most likely **."**

**"** No **."**

**"** Yes **."**

**"** No **."**

**"** DO YOU FUCKING THINK **\--"** The grip on Jason's shoulders was painful. **"--** THAT IF YOU HAD ANY DISTRACTIONS, _ANY AT ALL,_ SHE WOULD LET THAT SHIT SLIDE? What was your mission here, amigo, come on. Why did she send you here? **"**

Jason swallowed, glared at Vaas from beneath his eyebrows. **"** To kill you. **"**

**"** Yes. But why didn't she bring a fucking search party after you went missing, huh? Why the fuck didn't she send some of her foot soldiers with you so you could get a ride home and shit? Why the fuck did she send you over here high as fucking kite and delirious? KNOWING I have motherfuckers post up in every fucking corner just WAITING for a chance to kill you. **_Why?_ " **

**"** \---she didn't want me to come back **."**

**"** DING! DING! DING! _Guapo and smart._ Very good. **"** Vaas pushed Jason's face together, almost as if he were congratulating a dog for rolling over. Jason, however, did not seem to notice. 

**"--** but why would she **\--"**

**"** Because you are a toy to her. You are something she fucks, chews up, spits out, and kills. You are a warrior. She has hundreds of you **."**

Jason's looked contemplative, his eyes looking at the bare naked wall behind him. If Liza was dead, where was Keith? Daisy? What became of their hideout? He couldn't even fathom where Riley was. What if this was his fault? Vaas slapped his face twice. 

**"--** well, I'm tired of this shit **."** He started, hands falling from Jason's face. **"---** where is she? Where are they keeping her? **"**

Jason was silent, eyes distant, and beginning to water as they darted. **"--** I don't know **."**

**"** Yes, you fucking do know where she is. You fucked her. Got close enough to piss her off, where the fuck is her new temple? Which god is she praying under? **"**

**"--** I don't---she kept me--sedated--a lot **."**

**"---** Okay, okay. **"** He started, fumbling into one of the many pouches of his cargo pants. **"--** you're living a fucking soap opera, _hormones all over the place_ , crying- **\--"**

Jason hardly noticed the watch that was on his wrist now, it made a humble ticking noise however quiet. 

**"---I** tell you what, when the big hand **\--"** Vaas made a whistling noise as he pointed to the watch. **"---** reaches all the way up here, I am going to refresh your memory, okay? I am going to come visit you in your shit castle and you're going to apologize for hurting my feelings and calling me a fucking psycho **."**

Before Jason could even begin to ask what time he was referring to, he was gone. Carlos attempted to say something to him, but the action was hardly noted. They were alone with only the sound of the ticking. If Carlos knew Jason was weeping, he didn't comment on it as he fixed his bleeding back.


	3. Expectans.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Expectans - Waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if this is starting to feel a little weighty. It is important to establish a few things, establish character motivation and shit like that. I'll get to the exciting stuff soon.

When Jason awoke his arms and back muscles felt as if they were aflame. He had been standing there, in that spread-eagle position for three hours. How he had managed to fall asleep with nearly all of his weight pressed upon his poor wrists was beyond him. When he craned his neck up to look at the watch, the muscles in his neck gave an unwilling twitch. How the fuck had his body allowed him to sleep like this?

**"** \---Vaas! Vaas! **"** He called, groaning. **"** \--it's three a.m., asshole **."**

No response. Only the silent but contemplative ticking of the watch he had come to find as a blase sort of comfort. 

_\--when the big hand reaches all the way up here, I am going to refresh your memory, okay?_

Vaas was many things. _A psychopath. A murderer, an addict,_ but a liar he was not. Jason attempted to skim past the recency of every memory, tried to find a point in time when Vaas had made something up or threw out an empty threat. None came to mind. Vaas's actions, much like the inner workings of a machine, were clear and vindictive. Citra's on the other hand-- 

He thought of her face, the angelic plume of her lips and her unbelievably bright eyes. The kind of eyes American girls can only buy and wear for a day. He thought of her valor, her strength, the herbal scent of her skin and hair. She was, for all extensive purposes, perfect beyond comparison. A part of him thought he should feel guilty for thinking such a thing. Here was Liza trim and mild-mannered, waiting ever so patiently for the engagement ring Jason said he couldn't ever afford. _I'll put a down payment next check, I swear. Things are tight. Next time. Next time._ Where was she? 

_Dead, most likely._

_What will you do then? If she's dead._

_I won't have to buy the fucking ring._

He laughed at that. The sound escaping his throat was a dead rasp, a sound that hurt him to make. Rightfully so, it was a horrible thought to have. Liza had never been anything but kind and patient with him. When Daisy began to doubt their relationship, when she would call him things like _immature_ and _fair-weather_ , Liza would always say he was worth the wait. He knew this because Liza told him everything. She told him so much there were times he wished she wouldn't. 

_I know. Breast Cancer. She died of breast cancer when you were eight. No, that's not a lump there. Sure, I think it's great that you want to name your first daughter after your mother._

He was thirsty, his tongue sticking haphazardly onto the roof of his mouth and then dropping with a sickening popping sound. He thought of Carlos, the water in the spoon with the nasty indentations. To think there was a time not too long ago when he thought of Starbucks, cold water and ice through a green straw. Now he was certain he would happily drink the runoff water from a shower drain. 

**"** Come Josephine--my flying machine---up she goes. _Up she goes_ **_-_ ** **"**

He didn't know why he started singing, he had hardly realized he had done it. Childishly, he thought of his paternal grandmother, her old arthritic hands dancing over the keyboards even though it must have hurt her to do so. He was six years old again, clapping his hands and sitting on the stool next to her. Grant sat stubbornly in the corner, arms folded in his junior scouts uniform and cap. 

_To be young again. To be away from here. To be away._

This was what it was like until daybreak. 

  
  


**\- X -**

The rush of that soundproof door opening and closing again was enough to stir Jason out of his sleep in a violent pull. Inanely, he wondered if his arms were due to start tearing off. He could no longer feel the fingers and when he strained his neck to look at the watch that said 6 a.m., he felt pins and needles in his shoulders. 

**"** \--so sorry, Hijo. _So sorry._ There was an emergency. **"**

Carlos. By the sounds of him, he was flustered. His steps, which were usually so slow and methodical, clamored down the stairs. Something large and heavy was rested outside the cage door with the resounding chime of a hollow object. When Carlos was before him, Jason could see that he had been sweating profusely. His ponytail, which was usually resting so tightly against the back of his scalp, spread itself off into a straggly splay against his forehead. 

**"** \--- _ah._ Your wrists. **"** Carlos began to untie them, catching Jason in his dead fall and gently readjusting him back onto his cot. **"** \--we will not use ropes anymore, hijo. I promise this. You were waiting so long-- **"**

Through all this ridiculous doting, Carlos had gone ahead and reattached a set of handcuffs to Jason's already cut and bleeding left wrist. The other end was attached to a bar of his cell. He began treating Jason's other wrist with something that smelled like aloe vera, rolling a bandage over it twice. Jason laughed. 

**"** \--so no more ropes. But the handcuffs--- _that's fine._ **"**

Carlos paused, carefully applied the aloe vera through the loop of the cuff. **"** \---Vaas did not approve of the ropes. Said they gave you too much free reign. **"**

Jason scoffed. **"** \--of course he did. **"**

Carlos didn't seem to notice. **"** \--I can have you with one hand bound during the night so you can sleep, mornings you will be free to eat. But during the day they must be behind your back--- **"**

**"** This must be Buckingham Palace. **"** Jason sneered, feeling immediately bad because Carlos looked hurt. Instead of apologizing, like he ought to, he decided to pretend like the exchange hadn't happened. He was taught to respect his elders, _what happened to that?_

**"** \--did you bring any water? My throat--- _uh_ \-- **"**

Without fail, Carlos rested a plastic bottle in Jason’s hand. He had taken the time to twist it open and the resounding popping sound told him it had been fresh. _Bottled water. Here on Hell on earth._ What a sight that was. Jason greedily took it down, tossing his head back and nearly downing it in half the time it took for him to grab it. Carlos began to loop another bandage over his wrists, tightened the cuff when it was done. 

**"** \---thank you, Carlos. **"**

**"** It is nothing, Hijo. This is my work. **"** He gently tapped on Jason's back, asked him to turn where he sat. **"** \--how does your back feel? **"**

**"** \--like someone carved into it with a knife. **"** Jason did as he was told, grabbing onto the bars and facing the wound toward Carlos. The older man quickly peeled away the thin fabric there, bringing more of that herbal smelling stuff he had put on Jason's wrists. 

**"** \--it will feel this way for a while, _I'm afraid_ . Healing takes time. **"**

**"** \--and the infection? **"**

Carlos clearly didn't want this question asked, he blew a puff of air out of his cheeks, squeezed something out of a bottle that made a similar noise. **"** \--everything takes time. **"**

This man's hands were gentle, rhythmic, practiced in the way a good physician ought to be. It was crazy to think that such a person existed here in all this mess, a person who could heal, rather than maim. When Carlos's hand went over that sensitive spot on his shoulder blade, Jason bit his lip. _Fucking Vaas._

**"** \---why are you doing this? **"** Jason asked. 

**"** Because it's my job. **"**

**"** \--no. I mean---why am I not dead right now? **"**

**“** Are you asking why Vaas has not killed you? **”**

**“** Something like that, yeah. **”**

Carlos paused for a moment, wringing a fresh towel out into a basin of water and then resubmerging it. Jason could practically hear this man’s brain ticking, the inner workings of his thoughts clicking and lowering into place. _No, that was just the watch._

**“-** -unfortunately, I can not say for sure why Vaas hasn’t killed you. He is difficult to read **\--”** The towel back on Jason’s back was refreshing and long-awaited, he loosened his grip on the bars. **“--** but I like to think he’s spared you because I asked him to **.”**

Jason paused, ruminating over all the possibilities why someone he met only a couple of nights ago would put his neck out like this. Surely asking Vaas for a favor was nothing like asking a friend or colleague to borrow a light. Getting favors from Vaas Montenegro must have been like playing a lottery ticket. You sit there scratching away at that silver film, hoping for all aces and not a devilish _you lose._ Even so, you’d have to catch him on those off days where his mood wasn’t teetering on the edge of erraticism. _Manic_ . That was the word his old psychology textbook of disorders said. You had to wait for him to be _manic-happy_ not _manic-furious_ . The fact that Carlos could navigate such a minefield was beyond perplexing. Either he was the most patient man in the world or he meant something to Vaas, something Jason thought could never happen. He didn’t really know it but his mind was making a mental note of this, filing it away under the labeling system of memory. _Carlos is important. Keep Carlos close._

**“---** did we meet in a past life or something? **”**

Carlos laughed at that. It was a good kind of laugh, filled with a breed of amusement that was neither malicious nor demeaning. Carlos enjoyed Jason's company, appreciated his wit. Another shocking find on Rook. Someone with a normal sense of fucking humor. 

**"---** no, hijo. _No._ My saving you was not by divine intervention. I had no---how you say-- _revelations_ \---when I first set my eyes on you in that cage. **"**

Jason exhaled, thinking back to a time that felt like it had come and gone in a year. His first night on Rook sitting in a bamboo cage, Vaas laughing then screaming at him through the bars. Grant. Grant bleeding on the ground, the bullet hole in his neck grotesquely squirting out blood each time he choked. _Don't leave me. Oh god, don't leave me._ His eyes said. 

**"--** you were the one who brought us the water. **”**

**"---** aye. _Si_ . That was me. Your brother wouldn’t take it--probably thought I pissed in it or something. **"**

**"** No. Grant was just-- _like that._ **"**

What _like that_ really meant Jason couldn't really tell but he was grateful Carlos was not the type to ask him to elaborate. Years of being in the service had changed his brother. While he was always responsible, he was never righteous. Grant pre-military would limbo dance and salsa when he got tipsy. Grant _post-military_ would sock you clean in the face if you even mentioned that he ever did such a thing. He wasn't a bad person, there wasn't a bone like that in his body. He just harbored this anger, a horrible wretched thing that came out in the most inopportune ways. There was pride in everything he did. Daisy had bought him a letterman with a British patch for his birthday, Grant told her to take it back because it was simply _unpatriotic_. 

**"--** hijo, I am really very sorry about your brother. **"** The towel was removed again, a roll of gauze being unfolded like the parchment to an old prophecy. _Now the wound must air dry._

A deep and dark pain hit Jason in the pit of his stomach then. He knew its name without having to really think of it. _Resentment._ He was beginning to resent Carlos. Where was this fondness and caring for him when he was fresh off the airplane, shaking and shitless? Since he had such a way with Vaas, why hadn't he managed to convince him not to shoot Grant? How many other white boys, who looked just like him, were passed along under Carlos's watch? 

**"--** you are angry with me, Jason **."**

Jason decided not to dignify that with a response. He found it hard these days to be angry at anything. Getting angry with men like Vaas and Hoyt was like shouting at a house cat for eating your goldfish. At the end of the day, it’s just a dumb animal acting on instinct and the fish had no business out of the ocean. But with Carlos it was different. Carlos had compassion. Carlos could think rationally. 

**"--I** could not have saved him even if I wanted to, Jason. You know this. **"**

**"** So you saved me when I was stronger. When I was worth a damn. **"**

**“** Yes. I told you, I help you out of self-interest. **”**

Jason's rational side, the part he had long ago had been put to sleep, told him to applaud that man for being honest. He wasn't like Citra, boasting on about proponents of love and duty. He wasn't like Liza, twiddling her thumbs and smiling even though she was at her wit's end. But regardless of all that, he wanted Carlos to lie. Lie and say he was doing this because someone in the world still cared about Jason Brody and thought he was worth saving. Jason ducked his head down, rolled his shoulders. The wound was starting to itch.

**“** I told Vaas to save you because I want to save Mateo. **”**

**“--** and Mateo is? **”**

 **“** My son. My only son **.”** Carlos began to lay strips of gauze over Jason’s back, relieving the itch but only slightly. **“---** he was like you, taken by the Rakyat. But he was like Vaas in the sense that he was lured away by Hoyt. **”**

**“--** your son was a warrior **.”**

**“** My son was killed by a warrior. Several of them, actually. They sought to make an example of him by mounting his head on a spike and facing it toward the East wind. It was the first thing I saw when I docked here, trying to find him. **”**

Jason’s mouth gaped open, shut again. When he turned to look at Carlos he was gently ushered away so Carlos could have clear access to his back. He worked diligently, applying medical tape to the edges. 

**"--** you must understand, Jason that not all who come here are like you. I was a doctor in my country, in yours I could be nothing but a fisherman. I raise my son and he grows so tired of fish he comes to the Pacific on his 25th birthday. Hoyt's subordinates tell him he can be rich, that he can buy me a house and a car and I will never have to work again. **"** The pain in Carlos's voice was poignant and his hands even got a bit harsh as he was applying the medical tape. 

**"--** so I bide my time. I tell them what they want to hear, that I am from a division from Cuban neighbors, I am sent to treat wounds. I am rash, thinking I can find the men who skewered my son---instead, I find Vaas. **"**

Jason gripped the bars, stared at the climbing ivy from the ceiling. **"--** Vaas killed Mateo **."**

Carlos shook his head, applied another layer of gauze. **"--** no, but he could name them, _I was sure._ He is a new leader, word says he was with the jungle people. I bide my time some more, thinking I can find these men through Vaas. I treat his wounds and he tells me of Volker. He tells me about immigrants from every country, poor, destitute, and alone. He tells me how they all come here thinking they can make easy money. This was how they lured away my Mateo. **"**

Carlos's voice sounded as if he had just ran a mile, he muttered a few words in Spanish under his breath and pressed the medical tape into Jason's skin with more force than necessary. Jason did not emit though, fearful that the calm and apologetic side of Carlos would come bounding back like a bad fever. He wanted to hear this. Every word. 

**"--** and I make a revelation, I realize that the entire world is made up of evil men. Some of them do it for money and others do it for custom but the outcome is the same. They are evil men, Jason. They serve evil people **. "**

Just then, as if an electrical wire had gone loose, Jason could see Citra straddling him. Her eyes lidded by the harshness of a red sunset, her arms rising as his hands curved around her full hips and flat belly. _Evil people. These men serve evil people._ Even now, with his back in shreds and his body near ruined, his mind refused to make the correlation. Citra could not be evil. She had to be good. There had to be something in this place, something that was worth fucking suffering for. Her image was gone in the instant Jason realized Carlos had covered the wound she had given him. 

**"---** Carlos, I'm really sorry about Mateo. **"**

**"--** and I am sorry about your brother **\--"**

**"--** but _what the fuck can I_ do **? "** Jason paused again, hands gripping the steel beams as his forehead came to rest in between them. **"-** -Everybody keeps telling me I'm some kind of badass warrior---or I'm psycho Snow White but---man, _I grew up in Burbank._ **"**

When Carlos laughed, Jason felt a fit of anger ignite in him that was so hot and quick it scared even himself. His attention snapped up, his hands now off of the bars, and his quickly reddening face turned to meet eyes. 

**"** Jason---do you have any idea how _scared_ these fuckers are of you? **"**

Jason appeared to halt at that, rolling back into that ever divisive persona of the heathen meeting his oracle. And in the same time it takes to blink, Carlos the enemy became Carlos the friend. 

**"--** I mean--no one expected you to come out of the jungle alive. Not even me. When I heard you ran away, I placed my bets that we'd find your body down on the coast in Badtown. I didn't lose any money, _thank God_ , cause we didn't find you ripped to shreds in the compound over either. No one won when you started killing us, Jason. Even Hoyt's starting to get a little hot under the collar. Always calling in, asking if they've made any progress to catch you **\--"**

**"--** it wasn't much of a choice, Carlos. I mean--- _it's shoot or be shot_ **_._ ** **"**

**"** Si. Yes. But you must understand how terrifying it is for them to see a Gringo maniac. They've spent their entire careers believing you people are cattle, parts that can be sold to the highest bidder. Now they look at every person in a cage and wonder if they are the next Jason Brody. You made them realize they are mortal, Jason. And you did it all with nothing but a few marks on your arm and bravery. You're really something amazing, Hijo. Something this island has never seen before. **"**

Jason looked away, focused again on the climbing ivy that seeped through the ceiling. Funny, he had never been coy but having praise coming from someone like Carlos felt good. He who had spent these last few weeks going back and forth between his friend group and the Rakyat. The Rakyat who would push him harder, ask for more of his time and more of the skin on his arm. Daisy and the others who would look at him with more fear and disgust every time he walked into the cave. How often he felt they were relieved to see the back of him, their whispers returning to a warm conversational level as soon as he was not in earshot. Here was praise that came from his accomplishments, his resiliency. It made his chest feel like butter left on hot toast, he wanted to melt into the good feeling. 

**"--** but understand, Jason. Making them feel mortal works in two ways. They are scared, yes, but they are also arming themselves. **"**

**"--** a cornered rat **."**

**"** Exactly. They will torture you. They will threaten you, try and break your spirit **\--"**

**"---** you want me to do this. **"**

**"--s** cuse me? **"**

**"--** you want me to take Hoyt and everyone down. For Mateo **."**

**"** I always told you, I work in self-interest **."**

**“** The world is full of evil people and they serve evil men **.”**

Carlos smiled at that, looking at Jason as if he were a toddler who had just made his first steps. He began to gather his things, his cloth, the changed gauze. Jason came to the horrific conclusion he was leaving. He would be alone again.

**"--** and what does Vaas think **?"**

Carlos paused, sliding a vile of some pills into his chest pocket. 

**"** You will have to elaborate. **"**

**"** You said Hoyt is having a heart attack, calling everyday and shit. How is Vaas reacting to the news that he's mortal? **"**

Carlos stared at Jason for a long time, hands still frozen in that peculiar gesture of motion. Humorously and in the back of his mind, he thought of the low-res models on the old PlayStation. The ones that would stammer and fade when you pushed their hardware to its breaking point. When that image passed, Jason thought of a life chained to this cinderblock with no Carlos to reprieve it. He swallowed, met the man's eyes. 

**"---** Jason, do you think we are allies? You would call us that **?"**

Jason did not respond, waited for Carlos to confirm. 

**"** I would love to see this entire place burning. I would love to see Hoyt Volker cooking in his own furnace. However **\--"** He raised a finger, leaned in closer. **"--** I still operate in self-interes **t."**

Jason laughed. **"---** and telling me too much gives me the power to double-cross you **."**

Carlos wagged his raised finger. When he smiled, Jason felt a sublime sense of affection towards him. He could not name it as such but it was there, a respect of sorts. He thought of all the times his mother had used the term _salt of the earth_ . She would use this term to describe colleagues and bible study partners. Only now was he realizing what it really meant. To be from the earth, to be of its salt, _meant to be honest._

**"---** but I tell you this, Jason. Time tames even the most ferocious of beasts. Take it from m **e--"**

" You know from experience." 

Carlos's smile widened. **"--** say, I think you're about ready to try solid foods again, yeah **?"**

  
  


**\- X -**

A part of him would never understand the customs of business. In a tribe, you behave as a single unit, _sure,_ but the worker bees at least have the common sense to know where to fly back to when they wandered too far from the hive. It was not rare to find out that some soft-headed fuck wound up lost in the jungle. It became a daily bet who would be found starved out in some cave or pureed into tiger shit. That's why they had elected to start wearing red as the color scheme for their uniforms. Red could be spotted from great distances. That and they had not the funding or care to deck all the underlings out in neon yellow and body armor. This luxury was saved for Hoyt's men, the ones who had fucking health insurance and three story houses. Health insurance for a human trafficker. _What a fucking world, yeah?_ But that was how it was working with the pirates, the world seemed unnaturally organized and sure. There was a system for everything, a how-to guide for every accident or potential mishap. There were times when he loved the way his men looked at him. They looked at him as if he could move heaven and earth without straining a muscle. Other times, more than he would like to admit, being their leader felt a lot like manipulating the many limbs of puppets.

_You go here. No,no, not there. Go back here. Take this there. Guard this here._

It was an inane thought, but he could not help but dwell on the fact that the mess he was in would not have happened if he were in control of a group of warriors rather than pirates. Antonio had seen a white boy crouching in the bushes so he screamed for Vince to go and sound the intruder alarm because that was what they were trained to do. Like bitches bred to make pups, the men Hoyt gave Vaas were trained to shake and roll over when you told them to. _Nothing else._ Nevermind that they had said white boy back in custody within a matter of minutes. Nevermind the hostages that were still in their cages now knew that the people keeping them panicked at the first sign of trouble. Now they knew that escaping was a possibility, that it had been done not once but twice now. One could only hope that witnessing the double homicide of Vince and Antonio would put those thoughts to rest. 

**"--** **_j_** _efe. Jefe._ The gringo wants to see you. He is very worried. I saw what the big man did to him, it does not change his mind **\--"** The man who said this was short, stout. He had been stationed here nearly a year and still hadn’t felt brave enough to call Vaas by name. The aviator goggles he wore made him look like a fly scoping out a turd to lay on. 

Vaas rolled his eyes. **"--** hermano, we have two gringos now. One, two, count ‘em up. Which white boy is crying for Papi? **"**

**"--** the pretty one. **"**

Vaas stared long and hard, fingers curling into fists. 

**"---the** uh--- _yellow one._ The rich one. Not Snow white. He is--- _Jefe-_ -do you think he wants to tell us about the blonde one? Where did she go? **"**

**"** Shut the fuck up **."**

  
  


Funny thing was that the escapee had already spent a couple of sunrises out of the custody of the trans-pacific trading company. Oliver Carswell had been emancipated three days prior to Jason's little kamikaze mission to kill Vaas. He had been rescued just when Carswell's personal accountant wired the money into an anonymous checking account in Bangkok. He had been well on his way to a wealthy buyer in Kyrat whose appetite for white boy ass rivaled his partiality to ivory. 

That phone call was going to be a joyous one. What would Hoyt even say? _Sorry, I lost your living fuck toy. However, may I offer you something else from our catalogue? Maybe a Cuban? A chinese accountant, perhaps? I have three of those, believe it or not. Take one, I throw you the other half price._

In a way, Vaas pitied Oliver Carswell. Pitied him for not having the good sense to thank the gods and stars that he would live a little bit longer with his asshole still intact. Returning here was a lot like biting the hand that fed you. It was tempting fate, obnoxiously so. On first impressions Oliver Carswell had never been anything impressive. The son of a wealthy business giant, Vaas had seen and sold his type too many times to really count. His was a face that looked best bleeding and bruised. Whoever got to him first did a wonderful job. 

**"--** good evening, amigo. How are you today? **"**

This room was the same he had used to tie up and film Liza. A dark, intimate sort of space that again was beginning to be taken back by the jungle. Vaas sat cross-legged before Oliver who came out of his little daze with a strong lean to the left. One eye was swollen completely shut, the lips puckered into a permanent snarl that trailed a line of spit where a tooth had tracked its way to the floor. 

**"--** I'm great, man. _On top of the world._ **"**

**"** Good, good. You know, I like to hear that. When you are happy, _when you are smiling_ , it makes me feel good in my heart. Makes me feel like I am most gracious host. **"**

**"** Yeah, man---you're great-- **"** Oliver coughed, straightening himself up in his ropes. His hands, what were left of them, had missing nails on every finger saved for the right thumb. _All this for showing up in the fucking bushes?_

**“--** _must be, must be._ I mean, you come back here to visit after spending some time sight seeing. Free as a bird and shit **.”**

**“---** where---where is Jason **?”** Oliver’s good eye was on Vaas now, looking fairly lucid save for the streaks left that separated the dirt on his face from his tears. 

**“--** Hm. Does not ring a bell. _The bell is not ringing._ Jason, Jason **\---”**

**“---** did---did you kill him? Is Jason dead? **”**

When Vaas moved to stand, Oliver flinched. There was clear fear in the way he cowered. Fear quivered his bloated lips and made him flex the fingers that were no doubt already in pain. He knew the danger he was in. Unlike Jason, he had not come here with the liquid courage of some hallucinogen or a mission. He had come here knowing the consequences. He had came here with a pistol, a bottle of water and a knapsack full of under ripe mangoes. It was cute, in a way. Like watching your six year old try on his big boy shoes to be like daddy. 

**"** Speaking in hypotheticals **\--"** Vaas started, lacing his fingers above his head and stretching. **"** We say Jason is here. He's as high as fucking kite, a bitch under each arm. Bueno, yeah? Good for fucking Jason. What makes you think **\--"** This point was extenuated with a pistol, the same one Oliver had brought with him, under the young man's chin. **"---** that it makes your situation any less fucked? How does Jason Brody benefit Mr. Oliver Carswell, **huh?** " 

By instinct Oliver's neck craned away from the pistol, his good eye rolling over around in its socket like a q-ball punting into the pool basket. **"---I** just---I just want Jason **\---"** He coughed again, head turning to the side. **"---** no one else was going to come get him, man. They all just- **-"**

**"** Uh-huh. So you not only bring yourself back to me on a fucking platter, you tell me your friends are still breathing my fucking air. _Wonderful. Beautiful._ Very helpful. **"**

**"---** they were going to just---leave him here, man. I couldn't just **\--"**

Oliver started in on another one of his coughing fits, a motion that Vaas followed earnestly with the barrel of his new gun. _God, it was shit too. Lightweight and poorly cleaned._ Definitely bought from Badtown. That shitshow would be next on his hit list. But one could not shake the sense of irony in that last statement. Here was Jason Brody, tatting himself up and killing all these men for a group of people who were prepared to leave him for dead. Knowing the Rakyat’s ridiculous idolization of martyrdom, Jason would probably be convinced this was a good thing. 

**"--** I know he's not dead **."**

**"** That so? You fucking psychic, hombre? **"**

**"** Nah--I wish--Some of your guys talk real loud." He laughed a nervous chuckle, it reverberated in his throat and made his broken nose whistle. **"--y** ou wouldn't kill him. Not quick like tha **t---"**

It was decided then that he would not take notice of the fact that someone on his compound had loose lips. There was a reason he hadn’t exactly announced to Hoyt that Mr. Brody was having a stay with him. _Not good, Deal with that later._ Vaas looked down at Oliver with eyes that seemed nearly eclipsed by their dark circles. It was this calm, almost serpentine approach that made the younger man squirm in his bonds, look to the door in which he entered. **"---** _mhm._ But what about you, amigo? What's gonna save you, huh ? I've got two payments from you. One from papa and one from _papi_ **_._ ** **"**

Oliver, incredibly enough, managed to laugh at that. Amazing he was able to understand the joke in such dire circumstances. Americans were surprising, sure. 

**"--** I don't know, man. I was hoping you'd want to go for third **?"**

Vaas's turn to laugh and it was a real one, nothing sinister and conniving about it. Oliver, in his own quiet way, would have felt better if Vaas would have just started cackling like a Disney villain. 

**"** I like you, hermano, _I do._ You're so fucking funny, you know? It's very refreshing. Most of you fuckers just shit yourself and cry **."**

**"--** I like you too, man **."**

**"** No, no. I am still talking, okay? You shut the fuck up when I'm talking to you. **"**

**"--** I'm sorry, man. **"**

**"** It's okay. I forgive this once. **"** Vaas pointed the pistol at Oliver's forehead, lifting a single finger to emphasize his point. **"--** as I was saying before you fucking interrupted. _Yes_ , I am sick of the money, you know? You need to be humble in life, need to appreciate the fucking little things and all that shit. No, you have given me enough money **\--"**

Vaas threw the gun so that it rested atop a crate that had been repurposed to be something like a workbench. Now he held a buck knife that would make Jason Voorhees blush, he slammed it into the wood of Oliver's chair, it missed his wrist by inches. 

**"--** now you and _mwah,_ we are going to play a little game together **."**

Oliver visibly tensed, gulped thickly. **“---** I thought you said you liked me, man. **”**

Vaas laughed again and the guards keeping watch began to peer their heads over to see what was just so fucking funny. **“** Oh I do, amigo! _I do!_ This is what friends do, yeah? They play games, have fun and frolic in the fucking sunshine. But you forget-- _and this is the fucking thing-_ -I am working right now, okay? You are fucking up my business hours and you did not even make a fucking appointment to come see me. It’s rude, yeah? **”** When Oliver did not answer, Vaas inched the blade closer. **“--** tell me how fucking rude it is **.”**

**“** So fucking rude **.”**

**“** There is _absolutely_ no need to fucking swear. **”**

Vaas straightened himself again, circled around Oliver’s chair as the tip of the large blade flirted with his fingers. **“---** now rules of our game are very simple, Oliver. Super fucking simple so you listen **\--”** He stopped in front of him, eyes training toward the ceiling as if he was reciting a script from memory. “ **\---** I am going to describe each one of your friends cause--- _I don’t know their fucking names-_ -and your job? You’re going to tell me where that special little gringo is, okay? **”**

Vaas kneeled down to Oliver’s level once more, taking the blade so that it pointed right between his index and middle finger. **“--i** f you are quiet, _if you fucking ignore me_ \---one little piggy goes to market **\--”**

**“** They’re not gonna be there anymore, man. They’re always moving **.”**

**“** WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY ABOUT INTERRUPTING? **”** When Vaas’s fist collided with the side of Oliver’s head, he knocked off his hat. A guard began to laugh.

**“-** -holy **\--”** He remembered the no swearing. **“---** I’m sorry, Vaas **.”**

  
Vaas was courteous enough to place the hat back on for Oliver, albeit crooked. He slapped the back of his head for good measure. **“---** as I was fucking saying. **”** The knife was back in between his fingers. **“--i** f you lose, we can always get our good friend Jason in on this shit."


	4. Bestia.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bestia - Beast, animal, Creature. 
> 
> (typically used of beast of prey in Roman arena)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to take a minute to defend Jason's behavior as of late. I left the time he spent in the basement non-descript for a reason. He's tired, coming off infection, and confused. Give the boy a minute.

He slept the hours away on most days. Not because he was particularly tired. He was healing well enough and he could now turn his neck in either direction without being maddened by pain. He slept because he quite literally had nothing else to do. It was like his mind, realizing that he'd go mad with the loneliness, shut itself down to save him the added grief of sitting in a pitch-black cell. His dreams were fickle things. In some of them, he was back in his old college dorm, the one he hadn't seen for nearly four years. Here was Vincent, his roommate, baked and fresh from the shit stain pizza joint they worked part-time at. His eyes hazy as he handed Jason another blunt and talked about some bullshit level on _Super Mario Brothers_ . Here was Liza, sitting on the beanbag chair looking like an antique China doll in a thrift shop. _There was no island. No death. No tattau._ Only the nauseating mixture of four day old pizza and weed. Vince turned to face him from his couch.

**"--** Jason, _hey--Jay_ **_-_ ** **\- "**

When Jason opened his eyes, he became irrevocably aware of reality, the direness of his situation. He was not in Los Angeles, not in the Arts program. He was here right in the ninth circle of Hell. His hands, which were slick with sweat at the palms, began to ache at the wrist. How long had he been chained up here? Since breakfast. Carlos had brought him something yolky and dry, an undercooked egg on bread. Lazily he brought his attention to the source of the noise. Olliver. No, he must still be sleeping. 

**"--J** ason _. Oh my god._ Jay, c'mon man. Look at me-- _say something_ **_._ ** **"**

Jason squinted at what he thought was an apparition, the chords of his neck dully aching at the exertion. 

**"---** Ollie? **"**

Oliver brought his hands, all ten bandaged fingers, around the bars between them. The tears in his eyes gleamed in the low light. 

**"--** Jay-- _oh my god._ I thought--- **_holy shit."_ **

**"---** what--what the hell are you doing here? **"**

**"** Keith said you were going in for Vaas, man **."** He stopped, pressed his sweaty forehead to the bars. His hair stuck to it like a plastic mold, he looked like a Ken doll. **"---** I don't know, when you didn't come back--I thought- **-"**

**"---** you came looking for me **?"** Jason blinked, eyebrows furrowed. 

**"---** are you stupid **?"**

Oliver grinned at that and for a moment he looked like the middle school boy who sold joints under the bleachers. Jason's heart ached. 

**"--** yeah, man. I couldn't just---leave you here **."**

Jason looked at Oliver's hands, the tips of the bandages where his fingers were had already begun to turn purple. Bloodstains. **"---** Jesus **.** What happened to you **? "**

Oliver glanced at his hands, dropped them from the bars and cupped them together in a mock gesture of prayer. **"--i** t's not all that bad---compared to you, man. I think I won the lottery. **"**

Jason looked away, stared at a particularly long piece of ivy he had become all too familiar with. He didn't like the look in Oliver's eyes. Pity did not suit someone so naturally chipper. He thought of Citra’s voice as she carved some erroneous circular shape into the base of his spine. _Warriors don’t deserve pity. Mortals do not cry for you._

**"--** Carlos filled you in when he was patching you up **?"**

Oliver frowned, not recognizing the name. **"--** ah no, Vaas gave me these. I guess he has to carry bandages around a lot. His hands **\--"**

**"** Why were you talking with Vaas **?"** Jason's tone was horrifically accusatory, it made Oliver wince. 

**"--** he's the only one who would know what happened to you, man. **"**

**"** And what did _Vaas_ say? **"**

**"--** _uhm._ Not much. He's hard to follow sometimes. He just said that _some puta carved into you enough times to turn your white ass red_ **."**

Jason didn't respond to that, focused entirely on his reinvigorating hatred for Vaas.

**"--** Jason, what happened, man? **"**

**"** Isn't it obvious? _Vaas got the jump on me_ . Stuck me in a fucking cage cause it's his idea of a joke. When I get out of here, when I fucking get my hands on **\--"**

**"** I get you’re angry, dude. I’m mad too, but could you-- _like_ \--not talk like that **\--”**

Jason could not help the manic, prompt answer he gave. **“--** -talk _like_ what? **”**

**“** I don’t know, man. Like you’re the fucking terminator or something. _Killing this and killing that-_ \--it just freaks me out **.”**

Jason gave another pause, thought of the terrified look on Daisy’s face when he had told her how he had come to identify the act of killing with winning. There was this slow and steady way she took her hand from his as if there was a flesh-eating virus baking on his skin. He was reminded now how different he was from the rest of them. It was if each murder marked his skin and sullied his face. He was no longer one of them, no longer the nonchalant best friend who they called to drink and play pool with. He was something else, something foreign and terrifying. What he hated most of all was that he felt angry at Oliver for making him think of this. As if his best friend would ever do anything to make him feel any more ostracized and lost than he already was. _It freaks me out, he says. Could you be any more immature?_

**“** Fine **.”** His tone was short. **“--** how are the others **?”**

Oliver looked at Jason as if he had punched him straight through the gut. In a way, Jason felt a bit better, almost as if he had gotten even. _A-ha! See, I’m not the only fuck up here._

**“--** I--I didn’t want to tell them, man. **”** Oliver cradled the side of his neck in a damaged hand, wavering in his posture as if the weight of his thoughts were cumbersome. It was then that Jason thought how unfair it was that Oliver got full locomotion of his arms and legs. _Why does he get to stand and take a fucking piss?_ **“--** the big dude already took my fingernails. Then Vaas came in talking about _this little piggy_ and all that shit **\---.”**

**“--** you told them about the hideout **.”**

**“--** I told them about Earnheart---Vaas seemed angry enough at that. I think that old guy is in deeper shit than them **.”** The guilt in Oliver’s eyes made Jason soften a bit, made him rethink all those thoughts about how nice it was to see someone else fall from grace. How could this situation have such a _thing as getting even?_ Shame washed over him in waves. 

**“---** Oliver. They were going to torture you. Don’t feel bad, alright? They’ll--m _aybe they can run off or something_ \- **-”**

If the shame hadn't been apparent in Oliver's face before, it was damn near prolific now. It furrowed his brow in ugly creases, thinning his lips into a line so unassuming you would have thought it was a healed over wound. Yes, this was the look Oliver had given his father when he asked about his failing grades. The same look he gave whenever Jason asked for the lighter he had lent him the night prior. _You've been lying, Oliver._

**"--I** \- _-uh--_ I haven't been one hundred percent with you, Jay **."**

**"** I know **."** Jason tried to make his tone sound even, softer. But he was quickly finding that his sense of empathy was running short. It was as if he had to dig deep to find kindness, moving aside the fresher feelings of distaste and frustration. He no longer knew how to be comforting, as if someone had gone and pressed control alt delete on the software for it. He wondered how he could even begin to console Keith for all his trauma. And Riley, wherever he was, how could he ever be a brother to him?

**"--** just spit it out, dude. What else you got to lose **?"**

**"** \--I didn't come here just for you **."**

Jason blanched, realizing that he had not lost all sense of emotional draw. He could still feel disappointment. Words could still hurt him. 

**"--I** know that too, Oliver. **"**

**"--** it's not like that, Jason, I swear **\--"**

**"** _Oh my god_ \---could you please just tell me what the fuck is going on out there? Cut the shit and be honest **."**

Absently Oliver thought how much Jason sounded like Vaas then but didn't dare comment on it. _Maybe he had just picked up on all that nasty language by proximity. Maybe._

**"--** Liza. I came here because I want you to help Liza. The Rakyat won’t talk to us. When we’re not with you I guess we’re kind of just tourists. **"**

**"** **_\--_ ** _-what_ **_\--_ ** **"**

**"** I don't know, man. One night her and Daisy are together in the boat, sobbing, not letting me or Keith in. The next morning Liza goes out, says she needs to talk to a herbalist and _she's---she's gone_ **_\--_ ** **"**

**"** What the fuck do you mean gone **?!"**

**"** I mean she just didn't come back! **"** Oliver looked frantic there, drenched in his sweat. It made Jason want to fucking throttle him. 

**"** So you and Keith just let her walk out of the cave by herself? You don't _stop her or go with her_ \---you let her leave? **"**

**"--** we were scared, man. **”** Oliver started, hands shaking in his prayer stance. **“** Keith’s been acting weird, we hear gunshots everyday-- **”**

Jason laughed, it was a breathy and awful sound that came deep from his diaphragm. He relished the look Oliver gave him, it was the first time he had felt powerful since being locked in this cell. 

**"--** you're afraid of gunshots---that's fucking rich, Oliver **.** Try walking a mile in my shoes. **"**

**"I** 'm sorry, Jason **."**

**"** No, you will be. Sending an unarmed woman out in the middle of no-man's land. It's like---It's like I leave and common sense goes out the fucking window **\--"**

**"** Jason, I'm really sorry---I just---I'm not like you--I couldn't-- **"**

**"** I can’t do shit with sorry, Oliver! FUCK SORRY, OKAY? SORRY MY **\--"**

**"--** aye, aye, aye. Why are we down here yelling, huh? Why are we not using our fucking inside voices **?"**

Oliver looked at Vaas as if he were water on a hot day, moving to the side of the bars where he stood and pressing his face between them. He looked like a dog welcoming home master. 

**"** My poor perrito. Is Snow White bullying you, honey? **"**

Just then Carlos came in with a tray full of something that looked like wine and meat. At the very sight of him, Oliver backed away and into the darkness. 

**"---** why the fuck am I still in this cage, Vaas? **"** Jason snarled, eyes growing dark as they disappeared beneath his brows. 

**"** I fucking told you already, hombre. You hurt my feelings, calling me names and shit. Never apologized. **"** He turned to Carlos. **"** Can you believe that? Fucking cocksucker. Now he's bullying my white boy for no fucking reason. **"**

Carlos beamed down at Jason, fiddled with the keys in the locks. 

**"---** we have fantastic news for you, Jason. We bring gifts **."** Carlos said, stepping in. Vaas on the other hand sat himself down before Oliver's cage. He held an arm out between the bars, rubbing his fingers together and making a kissing sound.

**“** The yellow one helped us find your friends **.”** Carlos exclaimed.

  
  


**\- X -**

Stepping back onto the compound was a lot like stepping out from a sauna and into a nice breeze. In the basement, the stink of human waste sat and gestated like a pie in an oven. Up here you still had the unforgiving sun but the ocean just a few paces west did a good job blowing away the rank of burning fires and weed. By comparison, above ground was the island paradise so many of the tourists of Rook thought they were coming to. Vaas saw the subtle relief in Jason's composure, the sigh and reprieve of his muscles as his sweat-drenched skin finally came into contact with open air. 

With Carlos behind him, guiding him by his bound wrists, Jason looked an awful lot like one of those prize show dogs put in a competition. The men who lived here, the men who had carved their livelihoods from the backs of the innocent, all looked toward Snow White with a dry sense of expectancy. It was as if they were waiting for the circus clown to start juggling, waiting for the acrobat to take his first hurdle. This was entertainment for them. 

**"--** hey, guys. How's it going **?"** Jason grinned, knowing quite well a lot of them were coming face to face with the murderer of their friends and colleagues. To this Carlos squeezed his bicep, but not before Jason could spit in the direction of another heavyweight decked out in riot gear. This man was stopped from lunging towards him by a few of his more level-headed contemporaries who chided him in words mixed in English and Afrikaans. 

**"** _Lindo._ Very cute. He's a fucking comedian, this guy. Always with the jokes. **"**

Just then Vaas took hold of Jason's bound wrists, driving them straight into Snow white's back and sending him forward. Knowing better than to chide him in public, Carlos backed away with his arms crossed as if he were a priest in prayer. _Yes, Jason was finally his now._ While Jason had time to relish in the pain left by Citra, Vaas decided to give him a new ache at the back of his knees. He kicked them once right in the center, allowing the man to double over and gasp as if he were a folding chair laid out for mass. 

**"---** oopsy fucking daisy. Clumsy me **."**

**"** \--fuck you, Vaas **."**

**"** It's funny. This is all you ever say to me. _Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you._ I feel we are having problems with communication, Jason. We do not understand each other _._ **"**

Jason seethed at the sound of pirates laughing. Suddenly everyone spoke perfect fucking English. Screaming about gutting and raping and all to that effect. Vaas shushed them with a toss of his head, eyes never leaving Jason. 

**"-** -so, let's begin. Let us start understanding and comprehending and fucking interpreting, okay? **"**

Vaas lead Jason up and to his feet by the roots of his hair, an effect that forced him to look at the sky and wince. His adam's apple bobbed at the machete that came to rest there. **"--** now you have two fucking choices, Jason. Tell me you understand this. **"**

When Jason didn't respond, Vaas put enough pressure on the back of his head to make the machete press harder. 

"--fuck. Okay. I get it. **"**

**"** You understand. **"** Harder with the blade. 

**"** \--- _I fucking_ \--I understand **."**

**"** Bueno. Good, good. I tell you what, amigo. There is nothing better than being understood. I like that we're on the same page **."**

The pressure on his hair eased and Jason was tossed forward and jerked back when another hand went to his bound wrists. Vaas was sure to keep the machete unsheathed. He began to lead him down a dirt path that had been dug into the earth by millions of running army boots. There were empty cages on each side, the former homes of their last shipment. They went deeper in, passing a few shanty houses that were held together by nothing more than planks of wood and spare tarp. This was where the lower-ranking members would sleep and keep watch. They were conveniently far away from where all the parties and fight clubs happened. 

Vaas couldn't help but notice how quickly Jason bounced back. Within minutes of having a machete over his carotid artery, Jason's eyes were scanning over the vacant cages with the eagerness of a hungry Leopard. Such a threat would have earned him at least a good hour of complacency if it had been with someone else. Not Jason Brody, of course. Snow White had to be broken in like a nice new pair of boots. It was invigorating, impressive in a way that he couldn't necessarily describe. _I want to see more of you. Show me more of what you can do._

**“** As I was saying before you- **-FUCKING INTERRUPTED** \--you are going to make a big boy decision here. So you listen cause I am not going to repeat myself.” 

**"** \--we're going to understand each other. Yeah, I know **."**

Amazing how desensitized you get to yelling when you're with a person who does it all the fucking time. Jason continued his little search through the cages, choosing to ignore Vaas's laughter right up until he felt the man's arm loop around his neck. Involuntarily he was pulled into another direction, this time leading to a mock amphitheater that had wooden and fold-out chairs instead of stadium seating. Jason was vaguely reminded of the grand Coliseum of the ancient Romans. Much like the Roman's fabled _Anfiteatro Flavio,_ there was very little of the infrastructure here left standing. Perhaps there was once a stage of sorts here, a cobbled over whicker interpretation of a platform, but it had been eaten away by years of poor caretaking and Island heat. Where the audience would sit there was now the charred and decrypt remains of what looked like burned wood and sleet metal. Upon further inspection, one would find that many of these ashes contained the fledgling remains of a human skull or femur. This is where the unwanted hostages who failed to produce ransom met their end. Above this mass grave, held overhead with improvised shoots of sheet metal and rope were cages with a sliding bottom. 

**"---** Daisy **!"** Jason attempted to run to her but was yet again pulled back by Vaas. It took Daisy a moment to register that Jason was even there. A man who had been prodding her with a stick took heed to the newcomers and backed away slowly. She had been lying there in the fetal position, her head resting against the bars in a manner that made her neck look broken. She stirred in her tired stupor, gazing down at Jason as if he were some strange form of insect that she hadn't a name for.

**"--** Jason! Jason **!"** Here came a stronger voice, a male voice. Turns out Keith had been in the cage too, He was clamoring over to Jason and pawing at the bars. Besides a few dark stains under his pits and over the fabric of his shirt, he looked relatively unharmed. **"--** Oh my god--Jason! Jason! Over here, man **!"**

Jason looked between Keith and Daisy in a shallow form of recognition. They were his friends, sure, but the obvious absence of Liza was as poignant as it was disturbing. He was reminded all too quickly of the short but telling story Oliver had left him with. Maybe Liza was still out in the jungle, picking berries and fishing. _It was a nice thought to have._

**"--** E oe. Atalii o le teine fafine. Oe faalataina **."**

Another voice, this time from the cage that hung just beside Keith and Daisy. Even though Jason didn't understand the language, he knew spite when he heard it. Vaas, clearly insulted by whatever was said, bit back with enough vitriol to make Jason's ears ring. Again, this was entirely in the native Rakyat language. Unpleasantly, Jason was reminded of Citra, the unnatural and calculating nature of her serpentine drawl as she dug her knife into him. Between the bars, Jason saw another familiar face, one striped with the traditional moko that was assigned to those who were considered oracles. If memory served correctly, this man was Rangi, a warrior who had accompanied Jason on many a skirmish to reclaim a compound. However, looking at the man now you would have never guessed that they were once comrades. Between Vaas and Jason, Rangi looked at the two of them as equals. They were both roaches under his kitchen sink, both disgraces under the name of his gods. 

**"** Can you believe we've been trying to get this guy's story for the past week? Now all the sudden he comes out with the insults, talking about your fucking mother and shit. You warriors are such a fucking delight **."** Vaas had said this while driving Jason by his wrists over to the cage, Keith followed them over like a kenneled pup. 

Realizing now that that horrible vindictiveness had been meant for him, Jason began to feel small. It was one thing being chastised by the men on this compound. They were always his enemy. But there was a particular sting to this recent injury to his ego, the sense of betrayal was an ache that throbbed. 

**"** \--I didn't do _shit_ to him **."**

**"** Si, Si. I tell him this. I tell him how good and funny you are. You and your fucking jokes. But this man? This fucking prick? He is unconvinced. But tell me, Jason-- **"** Vaas looped an arm around Jason's neck a second time, used the machete to point up at Rangi.

**"---** what's this guy's job, huh? Why'd they fuck his face up like that **?"**

While clearly unhappy with the sudden physical contact, Jason made a point to never break eye contact with Rangi who returned the favor. **"--** he is an oracle. The akua speak through him **."**

**"** In rational, normal people talk, Jason. Explain for your white friends **."**

Jason's eyes hardened, remembering the way Rangi had been the one dully humming as Citra made the first cut **. "---** he oversees ritual. He oversaw _my_ ritual **."**

**"** You are a disgrace to our people, a traitor **."** Rangi spat through his cage and down at Jason's feet. **"---** death would have been a mercy for you, a kindness the goddess rightfully did not give you **."**

**"--** _goddess_ , he says. The comedy never fucking ends with you people, I swear to God **."** Vaas rolled his eyes, moved behind Jason.

Jason ignored Vaas, focused entirely on the warrior in the cage. He could feel the anger rising in his chest, the need to kill and maim something. It heaved inside him like a bad cough, forcing his shoulders to rise. **"--** well _maybe_ you should have opened that fucking third eyes of yours a little wider. I did more than just live. **"**

**“** Yes. You returned to like-minded people. The meek keep counsel amongst themselves, Jason. If you would have heeded the words of our goddess, you would learn this **."**

**“** \---where is Liza **?”** Jason was so caught up in the heat of the moment, he hadn’t realized Vaas had cut his hands free. 

**"** A true warrior does not reveal the nature of his customs to outsiders **."**

**"** \--what the fuck did you do to her **?"**

**"** My service to my goddess is my duty to the land that made her **."**

**"** YOU FUCKING PRICK, TELL ME **\--"**

Just then Vaas was before him again, one hand on his shoulder and the other pointing with two fingers **. "--** it's frustrating, no? Now you realize what we've been fucking dealing with **."**

**"--** give me something to make him talk **."**

Vaas considered, smiled **. "--** you don't think we've tortured him, Jason? Do you think any pain we inflict on him compares to the pain he was fucking born into, the pain that went into making him a fucking oracle **?"**

Jason's turn to consider, he started biting viciously at his lip. 

**"** You want to kill him **."** Vaas said, hands now going behind his back. 

**"** I want to kill him **."** Jason had no conscious knowledge he was speaking. The affirmation came out of him as if it were blood from a fresh cut. He felt like a salivating wolf staring at the Rabbit in its cage. Rangi looked on, ignoring the gathering collection of pirates who had begun to sit around on their folding chairs like the audience to a matinee. A heavyweight, the same Jason had infuriated earlier, came in with a canister of gasoline. All was forgiven. Vaas rested something in Jason's hands, a scarf. The same scarf that had been set to burn in a pyre when Vaas's men found Rangi. 

**"** Do you know why they burn the items of the sacrificed **?"** Vaas asked, hands going back behind his back as he began to circle Jason. 

Jason wrapped Liza's scarf around his arm, unraveled it, and synched it again **. "---** to release the soul from earth. The body goes, so does the earthly possession **."**

**"** And what happens to the souls of the colonists? What happens to the fucking uninitiated and wayward and the traitors **?"**

Jason's head rose as if done so by a pully string, the scarf wrapped half-hazardly over forearm and hands. **“---t** hey burn inside the belly of the giant **.”**

Vaas sighed but it was a theatrical gesture. Jason could hear the smile in his voice, the onslaught of a new chuckle. **"** You know Jason, I really came out here to ask you to choose a fucking side. Your friends or your people. I need more space in my fucking cages-- **"**

Just then Mister Heavyweight came up and drenched Rangi's cage in the gasoline he had brought. He sounded like a mischievous schoolboy cackling as he did so. Rangi, ever the oracle and noble, looked outwards and toward the direction of Citra's temple as if he were made of stone. Before Jason could even think to make that correlation, a slab of burning drift wood was placed in his hands. A ceremonial torch. 

**"-** -feed the giant **."** Vaas said and around him his men started to rally in a war cry. 

_Feed the giant!_

_Feed the giant!_

_Feed the giant!_

**"** \--Jason. No, _don't---don't do this_ . Holy shit- **-"** Keith's voice sounded a million miles away as if he were coming in from a faulty radio signal. Vaas who was standing behind Jason, waiting, did not even notice. Rangi began to chant, the same ritualistic, snake charmer shit he sang when Citra mutilated her prized warrior. When Jason brought his torch to Rangi's feet, he seemed not to even notice the pain as the fire ate quickly through his sandals. It was infuriating in a way, almost like realizing a favorite toy has run out of battery life. Even when the flames started to lick the wooden exterior, when his clothes and hair began to catch alight like the wick of a candle, he still sung. Keith was at the bars of his cage, eyes the size of dinner plates and streaming. Daisy, who had hardly even lifted her head to look at all the mishap, behaved like a dead woman. 

But Jason, _Jason felt grand_ . He felt the resurgence the addict feels when his needle finally hits his veins. From every sky diving trip, every roller coaster and every escape room, nothing compared to this. He forgot all about Citra, her delicate body, and her beautiful face. He forgot all about Liza, her twiddling thumbs, and her dead mother. He forgot all about Riley, God knew where he was. He even forgot about Keith and Daisy who were quickly being rounded up by Carlos who was also becoming a distant memory. He thought now only of Vaas, the carefulness of his speech when he said to _feed the giant. Yes. He could do that. He would feed the Giant._ Everyone would burn. Vaas would burn. Hoyt would burn. And most importantly, Citra would burn. She would go howling down into the belly of the very beast she created. The pirates danced around and cheered along their makeshift amphitheater in a roar. Some shot guns in the air, some punched and ravaged their coworkers. Others, the more content, simply sat and watched the flames grow brighter. Vaas was the only one to realize Jason was smiling. 

**"** OUR PEOPLE DO NOT FORGET! OUR PEOPLE HAVE NO MERCY FOR TRAITORS! NO MERCY FOR TRAITORS! NO MERCY! NO MERCY! NO MERCY! NO MERCY **!"**

Rangi repeated this until his vocal cords melded to his dystrophic muscles. A hand, which was now nothing more than a skeletal imitation of its former self, reached out to Jason who was dangerously close to getting a heat rash. He didn't care though, seemed as content as any other motherfucker over on this end to sit and watch the show. He realized then that Vaas was a few paces behind him, sitting with his usual cross-legged leisure pose as he fiddled with a long-necked bottle. 

**"** \---our people have no mercy **."** Jason recited. He found himself operating on some form of autopilot, his nerves perhaps too singed by the close proximity of the flames. 

He mimicked Vaas's stance, throwing himself down beside him and choosing to forget the ache it caused his back. _They were all going to burn._

**"** Those aren't your fucking people, Jason **."** Vaas intervened, realizing the bandages on his fingers and palms made it impossible to properly open the cap. Vaas handed it to Jason. **"** You see, the puta and the bitch boy? Those are your people **."**

Jason took the bottle, twisted it even though it cut his hands. He took a swig. It was hot but _God,_ it was the first flavor besides burnt meat and salty broth he had had in who knows when and he loved it. He handed it back to Vaas, who did the same thing. His sip was shorter, he fucking hated warm beer. 

**"--** not anymore. **"**

**"--** ooh. Very scary. You are so tough now, Jason. Very macho **."**

The bottle was handed back to Jason who finished it off in one swing. Vaas stretched out, laced his fingers together and pulled upwards until the knuckles cracked. Enjoyed the pure heat radiating on his skin. 

**"** \---I don't think I have people **."** Jason started, secretly wishing he had the locomotion to do the same thing. This seemed to get Vaas's attention though, he was up and alert and staring straight at the fire that looked to be climbing toward the sun. He shrugged, smiled a grin full of white teeth. In the orange light, Jason thought he looked like something out of a Matisse painting. Surreal and hyper-realized. 

**"** Yeah, well join the fucking club **."** Vaas replied, eyes brightening when Jason chucked the bottle into the flame. He threw the next bottle in after Jason finished it off and they just watched it all burn. 

  
  
  



	5. Cupio.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cupio - desire. 
> 
> commonly the desire of a lover. Cupid's arrow, derived from classical scripture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These just keep getting longer and longer. I apologize. I dont know why I'm hyperfixating on far cry at the moment but here we are so.

It had never occurred to him how unnatural their relationship was. All his life, from the age of five when memory started, he had been under the assumption that he was born for Citra. His mother, who had been told that she had birthed the reincarnation Papatūānuku, made a son after her daughter because that was what was expected of her. The sister who had been before him, the ill-begotten bastard, had been sacrificed in secrecy because she threatened Citra's reign as the new goddess. When he was born, when he came into the world as a clean slate, he knew only Citra. Citra who watched him like a hawk, Citra who saw his first steps and spoon-fed him when he was toothless. If she was the reincarnated goddess, he was the repeated cycle of the warrior who defeated the giant. He was her pet, her forever companion who remained stationary by her side for twenty-five years. 

Even when the other boys in his tribe began to branch out and mingle with the fairer sex, he didn't question the bizarre obsession he and his sister had with each other. Neither of them had friends. Neither of them knew of uncles or aunts or grandparents. And when their mother died, they had hardly noticed because she was irrelevant to their survival. When he was six years old, stricken with a fever courtesy of snake venom, it was not his mother he called for. It was Citra who had sucked the poison from his calf, Citra who waited on him the week or so it took for him to get over the trauma. And when Citra had her first defector, when anyone so much as questioned her status as a living goddess, it was Vaas who came upon them with the vitriol of a brandished knife. 

He had never before known a day without her. Never before looked over his shoulder and not seen her there, watching him with those cool and careful eyes. There were mornings where he found himself anticipating her cooking, her teas, and her offerings. _That was their thing, every meal was spent together._ There were nights where he could recall her stories verbatim, the natural tension of her voice, and how he never got tired of it. _There were times where he missed her._

And from his missing her came a vacancy. A vacancy that persisted in every which way he looked. Leaving the tribe and joining Hoyt made him realize that he was just as irrelevant and nonconsequential as any other motherfucker running betweeen the spaces of earth. No Gods were watching him take the lives of the Heretics. No amount of valor or prestige would strengthen his soul. He was, in layman's terms, just another creature of nature, no different than the fucking monkeys throwing shit in the trees. 

However, these specific obligations do not dissipate with a change of setting. The vacancy left by Citra demanded reparations, digging itself into the earth of his consciousness like a sinkhole. For a long time, he thought the answer was Hoyt. He'd serve another cause, volley for the God of commerce and wealth rather than Earth. This was all well and good until he realized how horrifically empty Hoyt Volker was. Sure, he could wax philosophical. He'd tell you about Beethoven's 9th and 8th, the intricacies of Chopin and Shakespeare. But you got the horrific impression that he was doing so because these were icons of high art. _Smart, well off people are passionate about this so I should be too._ And Vaas would nod, nod and agree while snorting another line of coke just to blur him the fuck out. Which made him think that that would be a worthy replacement. _Drugs._

He could bury the loss of his culture and sister with narcotics and weed. Which again, was fine until his little coping mechanisms started fucking up his worth ethic. He'd be so fucking high he'd be locked in a room spray-painting eyes on the walls “ _to catch the fucking sight_.” He'd miss a call by Hoyt and a couple of hostages wouldn't make it to port because he wasn't there to give coordinates. He still used, of course, but it was no longer a fulfilling purpose. It was like the diabetic taking his insulin. Something he had to do in order not to back tread into that void of complete purposelessness. 

He thought it could perhaps be people he could fill this void with. A hostage would be bought for this select purpose, but would be too boring and lackluster. _None of them laughed during the comedies so they had to die_. There was even a stint in time where he was partial to Carlos. It was short-lived because he realized too quickly that he was just another Hoyt Volker. Replace the drug empire with his extreme familial loyalty and you get the same effect. Carlos didn't care for any of the people he treated, Vaas knew that. He pretended to because it got him closer to the sick fucks who skewered his son. People were shallow by nature. The bond he and Citra had was of the same effect. He was quickly becoming disenfranchised, considering what the next option would be to fill this gaping void in his life. Then he met Jason Brody. 

**\- X -**

**"--** he just lit him the fuck on fire, Oliver. That's what I'm telling you **."**

Keith was beginning to feel frustrated because Oliver was doing that _thing_ he did. Jason Brody could do no wrong. Jason Brody was this, Jason Brody was _that._ There were talks amongst their secondary group of friends that Jason and Oliver’s closeness was indicative of something more than simple friendship. While Keith was never one for gossip, once the thought was placed there it kept coming back up like a pesky virus you couldn't click out of. 

**"---V** aas gave him a choice between you and the other dude in the cage, right? Jason chose you guys **\--"**

Keith blew air from between his teeth and wrung his hands together. On her cot, Daisy began to stir, but only slightly. Hopefully whatever that doctor man had given her was actually medicinal. 

**"--** okay, but Oliver, he started this whole crazy chant. Vaas was asking him about-- _-killing the uninitiated or somethin_ g---and he was rattling off with him like-- _verbatim_ \--it was creepy death cult shit. They said their speel and then Jason lit a fucking dude on fire. **"**

Oliver rubbed a hand over his sore neck, glanced at Daisy. It would be nice to have more than one bed in here, but beggars can't be choosers. **"--** listen, man. Jason's been going through some things. He's like-- _-stressed or something_ **."** He looked over at Jason's empty cell, removed his hat, and put it on again. **"--** you think he's talking with Vaas about letting us go? **"** Oliver asked.

**"--** Uh, _no._ I think Vaas saw a fellow crazy and now they're shooting the shit **."**

**"** Jason's not crazy. **"** Oliver said, attempting but failing to stand tall against Keith's larger stature. 

**"** _Oh my god, Oliver._ A week ago he came in just to tell us about how he scalped a guy three feet away. He's-- _-I don't even fucking know_ \--feral or something. We can't rely on him to **\--"**

Just then the big door at the top of the steps swung open with a large and heavy knock on the adjacent wall. Keith, who had become severely apprehensive of almost anyone he didn't know, immediately backed into a corner and assumed a wedding pose with his head down. Oliver, choosing to retain some bit of dignity, stood tall. 

The big man was back, the supposed healer. He carried Jason over one shoulder as if the man were nothing more than a pound of flour. Immediately Oliver's mind went to the worst place. His eyes traveled to Jason's hands, looking to see if any were missing or short a fingernail. To get a closer look, he brought himself to the door and wrapped his bandaged hands around the bars. 

**"Y** ou're growing cocky, Olive **r."** The man said, struggling a bit with the keys in the door. To address this, he gently rested Jason down at his feet and fetched the keys from his belt. Oliver could not help but think that now would be the perfect time for action. Jason had the upper hand, the medical man had his back to him, the stars were practically aligned. However, when no action came and Jason continued to lay about the man's feet like a soddened anchor, Oliver came to the horrible realization that Jason would not be saving him this time. 

**"---** yeah _well_ , cocky guys fit in here, right? You know- _-cause they have a lot of cock-_ \--so they can take cock---." Not only was that retort unclever, it was late, coming just shy on the amount of time it took the big guy to lug Jason into his cell and on his stomach. _Fuck._ If Jason were awake he would have said something brazen and clever, something real Han Solo like and witty. But Jason wasn't awake. Keith and Daisy were stuck with their worst option. _God, he wished Keith would step up and say something._ Regular, _Wall Steet Keith_ would, but ever since he got back from wherever he was, Keith had been painfully silent. 

**"** How do your fingers feel, Oliver? Do you need new bandages? **"** Doctor man clearly didn't think Oliver's attempt at defiance was worth answering. He asked this while carefully removing Jason's shoes and resting them beside his cot. _Like tucking in a fucking toddler._ Oliver couldn't help but notice how careful he was with Jason, as if he were treating an elderly patient with a bad hip. It was a sharp comparison to Daisy who was hastily offered some water and poked with a syringe. 

**"---** my fingers are fine. I mean they'd be better if you wouldn't have ripped the nails out **\--"**

**"** Very good. And your friend **? "**

Oliver looked at Keith and then back to Daisy. Neither of them moved. **"--** uh. She is still sleeping **."**

**"** How she fairs the rest of the night will be very telling, Oliver. Dehydration may be trivial where you come from but on Rook, it's a death sentence. Watch her closely **."**

Oliver couldn’t help but think how counterproductive it was that the designated doctor of this place wasn’t going to be the one to watch Daisy. Surely, he was under the Hippocratic oath or something of that nature. Daisy was morally his responsibility. Perhaps these things don't matter on Rook. He came to the quick and heavy realization that dwelling on this any further would be a waste of energy. 

**"---w** hat happened to Jason **?"**

**"** Nothing he didn't do to himself **."** The medical man said, coming to his feet on shaking knees. **"** Your friend has no tolerance for alcohol. **"**

Oliver laughed at that. Not because it was particularly funny but because it was preposterous. Jason had always been a prolific drinker. It had gotten to the point where he'd wake up to three shots in the morning and still ace a chemistry exam back in college. The point was Jason had been building a tolerance since their Sophmore year of High School. The idea that there was anything even remotely potent here in no man's land to knock Jason Brody out cold was laughable. 

**"---** this is funny to you? **"** He asked, moving toward Oliver quickly. From behind him, Ollie could hear Keith stir himself into a fetal position. 

**"--** well, yeah. **"** Oliver started. **"** \---this is the guy who did three kegstands in a night but still managed to drive me to McDonald's. He's not exactly a lightweight **."**

**"** Well tonight is the first night in many he's had reason to celebrate. He's no longer used to it **."**

**"---** or you drugged him. That's an option too **."**

The medical man knit his eyebrows, raised a finger, he was interrupted when Jason began to stir. 

**"---** Carlos--- _Carlos-_ -water **."**

Carlos turned to Jason and nodded. **"--** of course, hijo. Right away **."**

He was gone and up the steps, with this Keith regained his composure. Everyone was glad the lights were still on, it was comforting to see each other. Jason stirred on his cot, went to roll on his back but groaned when he recalled the pain that was there now. He didn't think he'd ever grow used to it. 

**"---** Jason, are you okay, man **?"**

**"-** \--yeah **."** Jason started, sitting himself up but shakily. **"** \- _-I feel_ \--I feel good. **"**

Keith tugged at Oliver's arm. To Ollie's horror, he was looking at Jason the same way he had looked at Carlos. 

Oliver shrugged him off. **"--** -I'm glad, man. _Did you-_ \--did you party **?"**

Jason shrugged, rubbed his eyes. **"** \--I had like---four beers or something **\---"**

**"---** you were drinking with pirates **."** Keith's voice wavered but was poignantly accusatory. 

Jason's eyes, which were horrifically red, shot up at him. **"--** yeah, Keith, _I was_ . I've been down here for almost a month. Call me crazy for wanting to do something besides shit in a corne **r."**

Keith pulled away, rested near Daisy. The vitriol for Jason was clear in his face but he dare not say anything more. The old Keith would, of course, but no one seemed to know where that man went. 

**"---** that's cool, man. I'm glad you had fun **."** Oliver started, pacing a bit. **"---j** ust be careful, okay **?"**

Jason made a groaning sound, laid back down. **"---I** 've dealt with pirates before. Don't worry about it. **"**

**"--I** 'm not talking about pirates, man **."**

**"** I'm not scared of Vaas either **."**

**"I** 'm not even talking about Vaas **."**

Jason looked at Oliver bewildered. 

**"** \---just be careful with that guy. Carlos was his name, right **?"**

Keith drove himself further into the wall when Jason got back up, hands to the bars. **"** Carlos was the one who saved my fucking life **."**

Oliver, amazingly, did not flinch. **"---** and I'm super glad he did, man. He patched Daisy up, got us away from all the crazy pirates. I appreciate that. Bu **t--"** Oliver stepped closer. **"--** he took all of my fucking fingernails off, dude. All of them **."**

Jason lowered his voice. **"--** do you realize what Vaas makes half these people do? He didn't have a choice **\--"**

Oliver, in all his infinite patience, bit his lip. **"---V** aas threatened to take my fingers off, _yeah_ , but he stopped when I told him what he wanted. Carlos just kept going **."**

Jason stared, came closer so that he and Oliver were at eye level. He knew there was no one in the world he could read more clearly, no one he could understand more thoroughly. He could tell he wasn't lying. 

**“---** what did he ask you **?”**

**“** He asked about you and Citra. **”**

**“** \---why the fuck would he ask about that? **”**

**"---** I don't know, man. But he didn't take kindly to the fact that I didn't know shit. **"** He pointed to the ring finger on his right hand. **"--** at this point, I was telling him you probably fucked her **."** He held up his left pinky. **"-** \--we had started here. **"**

Jason, feeling positively dumbfounded, stared at the bloodsoaked bandages and swallowed thickly. His mind flipped over the mental notes he had taken on Carlos during their brief encounters. He thought of Mateo, skewered atop a tribesman spear and looking out onto the ocean. He thought of Carlos’s hunt for the men responsible, the construct of his self-interest. He thought of the sturdy way Carlos carried himself, the calm and assertive nature of his voice. In a way, he reminded Jason of his father. Richard Brody, who had died a miserable bankrupt, spoke in that same pooh bear monotone. It was a tone that made you feel safe and listened to, certainly not the voice of a liar. But who was he to deny the bloody evidence staring at him right here, Oliver's mangled hands. 

**"--** he's different when you're not around, man **."** Oliver started, reaching through the bars and touching Jason's shoulder. **"--** you should see how he is with Daisy **."**

**"---** Daisy **."** Jason, horribly enough, had forgotten she was even there. **"---** is she okay? **"**

**"** Not really. **"** Now Keith chose to speak. _Fucking asshole._ In a way it was a relief, at least he wasn't completely hollow inside. 

**"---** we'll take care of Daisy, dude. **"** Oliver asserted, moving his hand to the back of Jason's head and moving it forward so they could touch foreheads. **"---** just be careful, Jason. That's all I'm saying **."**

Oliver slept by Jason that night. He did so somewhat comfortably because Jason passed him the pillow through the bars. It was a fading reminder of what they were like in boyhood, two kids beneath a tent made from Mrs. Brody’s kitchen table. Carlos never returned with the water. 

**\- X -**

When Jason awoke, the island heat that had been brushed clear from the night had returned with a vengeance. His forehead was soaked and the remnants of his hair stuck to it like flies on sticky paper. From his arm he felt a horrible sting, then a flush as something was pushed through a needle. He immediately pressed his hands to the concrete, as if starting a round of push-ups, but was guided back down when a hand came lightly to his back.

**"--** -it's alright, hijo. Just some fluids to keep you super. **"**

Jason did as he was told, but he was reminded about the water he requested the night before and the conversation he and Oliver had had while they waited for it. It was unfortunate, but he couldn't seem to scrub the idea out of his mind now. While a usual visit from Carlos was something akin to a godsend, it felt different now. In a stupid childish way, he wished Oliver hadn't said anything. 

**"** \---okay. When the fuck do I fish? **"** Vaas's voice.

**"** \-- _uhm._ When you got a matching number." Oliver's voice. 

**"** Hermano, you say these things, _you say these stupid things_ , yet you won't let me see your fucking cards? You see my dilemna, you see my fucking problem **."**

Jason immediately looked to see what Vaas was doing, attempted to follow his voice, but was guided back so Carlos could move and lift his shirt. Funny how he was just now noticing how Carlos man-handled him like a piece of meat, never asking permission or announcing whatever the fuck his treatment entailed. With his face pressed to the side, he could makeout Daisy and Keith huddled in each others arms in the farside of the cage. No doubt trying to stay clear of Vaas who was for whatever the reason, playing Go Fish with Oliver. 

**"--** -do you have any fours **?"**

**"** Go get your fish **."**

**"** \---I think it's go fish, dude. _Just go fish._ **"**

**" T** his is got to be some of the dumbest white boy fuckery I've ever seen--you come to me with your lies and your fucking bullshit and your fucking tricks and you say to me to _go fish_ ? Fuck you and your fucking fish, okay? Fuck the fucking fish in the sea. Fuck the fish in this fucking game! **"**

The cards were scattered everywhere, the pain in Jason's veins dulled to another cold rush as a salty, almost placid taste developed at the base of his tongue _. Saline solution_. Jason sighed a breath of relief. 

**"---** it's okay, man. We can try a different game. Here, check this out. My Mom used to do BlackJack- **-"** Oliver's voice, weirdly enough, did not waver. Years of dealing with a heavy-handed alcholic uncle taught him well. 

The sound of cards shuffling was a methodic and familiar hum. It brought Jason back to a brief stint in Vegas, his twenty-first birthday. He remembered the exhaust of an engine, the burn of rubber as he entered his first illegal race. The pain of the cheesecloth leaving his scarred flesh, was only heightened with the slight tearing sound it made. Daisy looked, her face dropped at the sight. Keith stared straight at Vaas. 

**"** \---today is a very big day for you, hijo **."** Carlos said. The antiseptic alcohol was back. That shit burned too. Jason moved his head, anticipated a headache. When none came, when the hangover was not apparent, he again wondered what the fuck was in that syringe. 

**"** \---my birthday's in December. **"** Jason joked, trying to sound light. **"** \---I haven't been down here that long, right? **"**

Carlos laughed, the sound made Jason's heart ache because it sound real and from the belly. The way Dad used to laugh. 

**"** No, hijo. But I will commit this to memory. You see, Hoyt has given us some very interesting intel from one of the outposts you took **."**

Jason broke eye contact with Daisy, reminded himself that he lived in a world where Hoyt Volker existed. Suddenly the world became more than just his next meal and the pain in his back. There was life beyond these cages. How had he just forgotten about that? Carlos took Jason's silence as the go ahead to continue. 

**"** \---they're selling the equipment we left there back into the community. Local gunshops carry them. Some of our guys have gone out, pillaged a village, and took back what was ours. Normal people don't know how to use fucking assault rifles. Espcially not jungle people. **"**

Jason paused, thought about how the people of the Rakyat were unaccustomed to guns. The ones that were doing this thought they were protecting their people, saving them by arming them to the teeth. The problem was, not everyone got conditioned to be a warrior. **"-** -are they stupid? **"**

Carlos laughed another one of his belly laughs. **"** Yes, yes. _This is what I said._ But it's good for us, no? This means there's an outpost with a little less armory behind it. **"**

**"-** -you want me to take it back for you. **"** Jason clutched his fingers into a fist when another bandage was laid over his back. 

**"** It would be nice to have it under our name again, _yes--_ but the rumor is--- **"** Carlos was interrupted by Oliver shouting.

**"** IS THIS YOUR CARD? **"** Oliver said this in a whimsical, mock warlock tone. Jason knew this trick, Oliver did it at every party and every gathering. Unlike all the stoned college freshman who saw it before him, Vaas sounded delighted. 

**"** \---wow! A fucking magician! _Very good._ Do it again **."**

Jason strained his neck, wanted to see Vaas's expression. **"** \---what are they doing? **"**

**"** Stupid shit **."** Carlos muttered, sealing off the medical tape. **"** \--- _as I was saying_ \---we had an inside man tell us that they'll be moving some intel around. It’s a slim chance--but it might contain the rotation chart for Citra. She travels in style, _after all_ , needs her relics and her earthly possessions **.”**

Jason thought for a moment, recalled all the times Citra was goaded around like a prized jewel. On the rare times the fancy took her to stroll the beach, she'd have two women trailing behind her with palm leaves overhead just to keep the sun at bay. While she forbade herself to eat meat, every fruit that touched her lips was not only tested by an appointee but handpicked that day. Nothing that sat in a bowl or on a counter was worthy of the living goddess. Once upon a time, he found that sort of thing hot, almost like he was being granted access to an exclusive club just by being in her presence. Now it was an inconvenience. Almost fucking pretentious. 

**"---** I'd hate to burst your bubble, Carlos. But I really don't think they'd commit that sort of thing to paper **."**

Carlos guided Jason to sit up, he did so. When Jason stood, Carlos rested both hands on his shoulders and turned him to face him. **“** \--yes but this is an opportunity for you as well, Jason. This is your chance to prove yourself **."**

"- **-** this shit is unbelievable. _What_ _the fuck._ If you get this right. Amigo, if you get this fucking card right, I'll give you my left nut. Do it the fuck again **."** Vaas said this with his face pressed to the bars, Oliver's head bowed over his as he shuffled the cards. If he was smart, Jason thought, Oliver would gouge his eyes out. 

**“** \---prove myself? **”** Jason started. Already, he was starting to feel tired of this term. Dennis had said it when initiating him with the tattau. Citra said it when she sent him on his fucking death mission. Now here it was again, a bad omen. 

**"-** \--yes, Jason. You remember how we spoke about the cornered rats? You are not one of them, Jason. They still see you as an outsider. Rangi was a good start but it is not enough, they must see you fight alongside them. You must break bread. Then they will get you what you want **."**

Jason stared at Carlos, contemplated whether or not he hated or admired him for being so manipulative. Wondered if he was even being manipulative at all, had he not said everything he did was operated in self-interest? What was worse, Jason couldn't even begin to fathom what it was he even wanted. Liza was gone. Keith was a broken artifact. Daisy seemed in and out of consciousness. Oliver was a caged magician and no one even knew where Riley was. 

  
  


"---Riley, I want Riley **."**

Carlos smiled wide, clapped Jason on his shoulder. **"** \---yes, Jason. A man who has a goal is a man who gets shit done. Come, we have preparations to make while the morning is young. Come, we'll get you ready. **"**

Carlos whisked him away so fast that Jason didn't get a chance to voice how much he hated the fact that Vaas was going to be left unattended with his friends. Not that they needed his supervision to keep their distance. Daisy and Keith stayed pressed up against the cage, both looking wild eyed as if it were a tiger before them instead of a man. Oliver, calm as always, sat in the same cross-legged stance that mirrored Vaas's. He showed him the ace of spades, Vaas's card, and slided it between the bars so Vaas could see it. 

**"** \---hey, Vaas? Since I got this right--I could let you off the hook so you won't have to give me your left nutsack. **"**

Vaas's smile was large, he laughed, shoulders concaving as he spun the card diagonally. He did it so quickly the ace looked like a hummingbird's beating wings. **"--** so you're magic and smart, huh? Must be a fucking con-man **."**

**"** \---can you watch out for Jason, man? Watch him with Carlos **."**

Vaas's direct eye contact was shocking and unnerving. He tilted his head as he did it, jaw working as he brought his lips in a thin line. Oliver was certain he was looking for a good place to hit him. 

**"** You don't like Carlos. Why **? "**

Oliver showed him his damaged hands, wagged the fingers. Vaas laughed again, shrugged with the card placed between two fingers. 

**"** Alright, Alright. It's a good fucking point. But Jason's a big boy, no? A fucking warrior. You think he needs a babysitter? **"**

**"-** -Jason thinks Carlos is his friend. He thought Citra was his friend too. **"**

It was as if the mere mention of Citra shattered something inside Vaas. It brought his smile down, blanked his eyes, and made them fall back to the card. Oliver held his breath, decided that he needed to be a strong and immovable object. For his sake. For Daisy's sake. For Jason's. Vaas's eyes met Oliver's again. 

**"-** \--does Jason know the dumb fucking shit you do for him? The card tricks and the running around in the fucking bushes. **"**

Oliver laughed. **"I** think so-- **"**

Vaas shook his head. **"** It's not funny. _It's not a joke._ You see, the fucking connections we make, the people we die for, they're the fucking music playing when you're deaf. They're-- _the winds in your dumb ass sails_ \--when the fucking ship is sinking. Do you understand? **"**

Oliver honestly didn't. Vaas talked too fast. **"** \--yeah, man. _I get it._ **"**

They stayed that way for a while. **"** \---do not die for Jason Brody. **"**

Oliver winced, brought his arm around his legs and hugged himself. **"** \---that's what I'm trying to do, man. Not die at all. **"**

Vaas stared at him for a long time, long enough to make Oliver feel small and nonconsequential. Oliver wondered to himself what could have happened to someone like this to make them so brilliantly introspective yet unhinged. Vaas was eloquent, even poetic at times and there were short bursts where you could see his sense of humor. He was not a fucking Bond villain, all riches and guns. He had a personality. Ollie wondered what it was about Citra Talugmai that made both Vaas and Jason run off the deep end and keep sinking. 

**"** If you want to survive here, Oliver, I'll give you some key fucking advice-- **"** Vaas trailed off, standing and looking straight at Keith who immediately hid his face in Daisy's neck. **"** Do not sacrifice yourself, your fucking life, for some crazy headed fuck who's already dead. Do not fucking live for someone else. **"**

Oliver looked up at Vaas, confused but listening. **"** \---he is like a brother to me, man. **"**

**"** That doesn't mean shit, amigo. When push comes to shove, when it's your skin or his, watch what he fucking does **."**

Oliver looked down, hugged himself tighter. Vaas took the brim of his hat, shook it so that his head went back and forth. 

**"** Its not all bad, hermano. At least you have talent, cards and shit. All Jason does is fuck Jungle pussy and cry. You're like Houdini or some shit. Never see anything fucking like it. **"**

**"** Thanks, Vaas. **"** The words sounded weird, foreign. Here he was getting a pep talk from the same man who sold him into slavery not a week ago.

**"** You're welcome **."** Vaas said, standing to his full height and fishing a prerolled blunt from his pocket. He handed it to Oliver, lit it for him between the bars. **"** Now, I have to go fuck some shit up--- _kill someone or some shit_ \---i don't even fucking know what’s on the agenda. You have a nice day, hermano. Enjoy your vacation. **"**

**\- X -**

He had only noticed how filthy he was when Carlos had asked him to change. In reality, he hadn't the faintest idea how long he had spent locked away in the basement. This was the same set of clothes he had come in, _high on god knows what_ , to kill Vaas. The same set that he had been galavanting in the Jungle in and the same outfit he had been sweating and sleeping in for more than just a fortnight. _It was many moon and nights_ as the Rakyat profits would say. _You spent many exchanges under Tamanuiterā._

Indeed, he _must have_ because his old blue t-shirt stuck to his skin and frame as if it had been done over with adhesive. A shower wasn't entirely out of the question, _they did get hot water here_ , but Jason wasn't exactly game to try his luck in the showers. _If you could even call them that._ Men would just stand around on a block, stark fucking naked and let the water beat down on them. Side by side, no curtains or shelves for privacy. He was reminded of what Grant once said upon returning abroad. _It is only in the West where we are shamed for our bodies, it is only in America where the idea of nudity is strictly provocative._ Regardless of whether or not he was acting by cultural teaching, Jason declined the group shower. He tagged double jeopardy when Carlos offered him a sponge bath because that was somehow worse. No, he opted for the simple pleasure of a change of clothes. He was given the typical assaulter gear, a red cut off tee with an obnoxious skull and crossbones paired with the traditional tactical pants everyone seemed to wear here. **_Funny, they're really fucking expensive in the states_ ** **.** Carlos offered him a large neck scarf, used specifically for covering his face. While he didn't want to use it, _it felt too cowardly_ , he could understand the necessity. 

**"---** now when you go in, _go in slow and steady._ We don't want your back to cause you issues **."**

Jason meant to voice his protest but he was being quite literally pushed out into the tiger's den. Men, all shapes, sizes and statures, were staring at him. Some of them were in leisure, resting atop a raised platform or bench. Others, the more worryingly, were standing tall and holding their assault rifles in a vice grip. All of them looking at him. He wanted more than anything to be back in his cage at that moment. He wanted to curl up in his little corner, face to face with Oliver and never leave again. It was childish, weak, nothing like a warrior should be. That was until he saw Vaas. He was leaning against the bumper of a riot van, a large rather intimidating looking dark-skinned man with dreads stood beside him and staring out past the gate. Two chicken-necked Italians whistled. 

**"** Very nice, very handsome, Jason! Red is his color, no? Come on, Chewie, tell the white boy how guapo he is **. "** Vaas slapped the big dreaded man on his bicep hard enough to make a loud crack. Chewie, _as he was called_ , looked to and from Jason with the swift disinterest of a housecat lazing in the sun. 

**"** Chewie we fucking talked about this, hermano. You wonder why you have no friends? Why nobody drinks with you, why none of the pretty bitches want to fuck you? Open up and talk and shit. You're so fucking boring **\--"**

While Vaas was busy chastising Chewie, Jason turned to Carlos. 

**"---** Vaas is going **?"**

Carlos gave Jason a sympathetic look, smiled as if Jason were five and on his first day of kindergarten. 

**"---** yes. He often does. I think he enjoys these kinds of things **."** Carlos offered, patting Jason on the back. **"--** but he's promised to be on his best behavior. For my sake at least **."**

If that was meant to give Jason comfort, it did the exact opposite. From what Jason had seen of him, good behavior for Vaas still entailed yelling and throwing objects. In a small budding way, he felt betrayed that Carlos would even think to leave him alone with the same man who had mutilated him not a week prior just to prove a point. Carlos must have seen this in his eyes, the minuscule hurt, he held onto his shoulders and locked his gaze with Jason's. 

**"---** you've overcome greater obstacles than this, Jason **."** Carlos heeded. **"** Remember, you took it once, you can take the outpost again. This time you'll have help **."**

Jason looked to their ragtag group of misfits. All in all, it was him, Vaas, Chewie, the two jittering Italians who looked like twins, and a sniper who was already situated in the shotgun seat. _Stellar._ Vaas was looking at him now, smiling with his head cocked. In a way, focusing on Vaas made the situation better. Here was someone, at least in a muted sense, he knew. Someone who had an interest in keeping him alive. What that interest was he didn't know, but it was better than being left to the care and whims of the two numbskulls over here cackling to themselves like Beavis and Butthead. 

**"---** are we fucking going or are you waiting on some more goodbye kisses from mama? **"**

Jason seethed through his teeth, pulled the bandanna over his mouth. **"---** _god_ \--shut the fuck up **."**

Vaas laughed, winked at Carlos who nodded and gave them a two-finger salute. He was the last thing Jason saw from the rear-facing window as they left the compound. 

  
  


**\- X -**

For the first time since this nightmare started, Jason was looking at Vaas unbridled and clearly. Before this, there was always some vague form of rhetorical plexiglass separating him. Vaas was on the other side of a cage or a good few feet away waxing about the definition of insanity. Now they were face to face with no abhorrent danger between them. He was grateful for the pair of aviators Carlos had given him, _most likely his own._ It meant Jason could stare without being noticed. 

Vaas was sitting right beside the gated window where Chewie and the sniper sat, his teeth grazing on the end of an unlit cigarette that would rotate and flip in his fingers when he wasn't damn near gnawing on it. Vaas had a problem with sitting still, that was apparent. The two jitterbug Italians, who were revealed to be demolition experts wanted in Paris and Munich, stared at Vaas as he studied the map they had concocted just for this occasion. This was their livelihood, after all, they'd been doing this since their days robbing convenience stores and liquor shops. They so clearly pined for Vaas's approval too, winging over by his side as they waited for him to speak. 

**"** This is very good, boss? You work with this **?"** The older twin, Fransico, looked to Jason and Vaas as if they were mommy and daddy debating on getting him a puppy. **"** The American likes it too, no? He thinks it's wonderful **.”** Fransico grinned at Jason long enough to flash him a glance at the two golden incisors capped to his gums. When Vaas responded with nothing more than a half-hearted _uh-huh_ , they disappeared again. 

**“--** it’s interesting, you know? Very fucking interesting **.”** Vaas mused. 

**“** \--what is? **”** Jason asked and the second twin, Paolo, stopped his rocking long enough to look at him. 

Vaas pointed a finger up, shushing him. Jason felt fucking infuriated. **“---** there is a lot of room, here, here and especially _fucking here_ , for Snow White to get cute **.”**

**“--** -I trail behind, boss. Make it impossible for him to get _cutie, cutie._ **”** Paolo said, nearly leaping out of his seat when they hit a bump in the road. Jason hated this, this subtle and condescending way they were talking about him as if he weren’t in the fucking van. 

**“---** you have my friends. I’m not gonna try anything dumb **.”** Jason replied.

**“** _Huh_ ? I thought those weren’t your people **.”** Vaas’s eyes shot up from the page in a quick, passionless dart. He’d seen tigers look at him in the same way when he creeped too close to their den. When Jason didn’t respond, when Vaas saw the thin line of his jaw harden and become steel, he smiled again. **“--** it’s a precaution, Jason. Think of it as what? Collateral? Extra incentive for good fucking behavior? **”**

Down his eyes went again upon that map and Jason came to the horrible realization that Vaas and Citra had the same nose. Much like how he was with Riley, the two of them wore their similarities like visors, the nose and shape of the eyes. He thought of Citra, her eyes lidded by red sun as she straddled him. No, he had to let the image go before the correlation set in. 

**“--** let me see the map then. **”**

**“** Collateral, Jason **.”**

**“** GOD DAMN IT! **”** Jason went to kick at Vaas, but the pirate lord caught his foot and pulled him forward so that his tailbone painfully collided with the hardened steel of the car’s interior. Francisco, who really hadn’t seen any of this coming, screamed something in his native tongue and threw himself toward the doors. Paolo, who was somehow nonplussed, watched Vaas nearly leap over him and on top of Jason. If Jason wanted to get the image of Citra straddling him out of his mind, this was the wrong move. Vaas was pinning him down, knees on either side of Jason’s hips as his hands were wrapped around Jason’s neck. At least the expression was dissimilar to Citra now, that manic, toothy grin was completely Vaas. 

**“** See this is what I fucking mean, you’re tricky, you. So fucking cute, so fucking clever. With the stunts and the fucking games. **”** Vaas squeezed Jason’s neck and Jason’s hands began to paw at his wrists, leaving angry red marks trailing behind his nails. **“---a** nd it would be so easy, _so fucking easy to just snub your bitch ass out_ , let you go beneath the waves of fucking unconsciousness! I tell you what, Jason it would be fucking mercy for you, a fucking mercy to let you die and end all the miserable self-inflicting bullshit. You want it, yeah? YOU WANT TO FUCKING DIE **? ”**

When Jason went to snake his hands around Vaas’s neck in return, he lifted him up so they were face to face by the scruff of his shirt. Jason gasped for air, kicking and struggling as Vaas pressed so close to him, their noses were nearly touching. 

**“---** but I do you one better, hermano. _I do you one fucking better, okay?_ I am going to let you live. I am going to let you live and see all the piss and shit of the world. All the fucking pain and the fucking misery and the torment. And then-- _-then_ when your sorry ass is done, you’ll fucking beg me to end it. Fucking end it all. **”**

**“----** I take a piss break now **.”** Chewie’s heavy, methodic voice coming from the driver’s side as he put slid the gear into park. The sniper, who had clearly gotten used to this sort of behavior from Vaas, opened the door and shut it again _. As long as it’s not me,_ his casual stroll said. Francisco, fumbling for the door, opened it and exited as well. Paolo, who was literally trapped, seemed not to mind. _This was entertainment._

**“** \--then fucking end it, Vaas.” Jason wheezing, hands gripping onto Vaas’s and squeezing. **“** \---I’ve seen enough shit in the world to know it’s rotten. So fucking do it-- **-”**

Vaas stared at Jason, stared with those bottle-green eyes that looked nothing like Citra’s ancient, eclipsing blue ones. His grip laxed and he seemed to be waiting for Jason’s retaliation. When it didn’t come, he smiled again. 

**“---** do you really think this is the top of shit mountain, Jason? Do you honestly think we’re not headed for a shit storm, a real fucking grade-a disaster **?”**

Vaas was slowly starting to drive Jason batty. _Why? Why keep bating and playing with him like this if everything is going up shit creek?_ Wouldn’t it be better to just be done with it? To kill him and throw his body into whatever crevice now holds Grant? It made sense to him. Made sense that his greatest adversary would just kill him and stop with the foreplay. In a way, he was starting to want that. He thought of Buck then. It was a minuscule flash, a vibration of a memory. 

_This is some fucked up foreplay, huh?_

**“---** what do you want, Jason? In all the fucking world, what do you want?” 

Jason groaned at this, wondered what it was about Vaas’s fractured psyche that made him so damn philosophical and chatty at the worst of times. 

**“** \---I want you to get the fuck off me **.”**

**“** \---no, no, no. You don’t understand the bigger picture, hermano. Look, if you could say to God and Jesus and all his fucking genies and shit. You ask them to grant you one wish, what would it be **?”**

Jason thought about this and in an out of mind sort of way, he thought how fucking ridiculous this was. It was ridiculous that they were sitting in a van in the middle of nowhere talking about genies and shit but there they were. It was only then that Jason realized Paolo was still there, hanging on their every word. 

**“** \---I’d go home **.”** Jason started, staring at Paolo instead of Vaas. **“** \--I’d go home with Daisy, Keith, Riley, and Ollie. I’d---take us all home **.”**

Vaas seemed to consider this, moved himself to the other side of the van and onto the seat so they were separate. **“** \---and what will you do if this doesn’t happen? What if you fucking fail? **”**

Jason looked at Vaas again, straightened himself and felt the extreme pain in his back. **“** \---I’ll--- _I don’t know._ I guess I die. **”** He glared again. **“** \--you’ll kill me **.”**

**“** But I didn’t kill you now? Why is that? **”**

**“** \---because you fucking want something. **”**

**“** FINALLY. Some fucking sense out of you, Jason. **”**

Jason’s eyes lit up with a minor sense of realization. He thought of Carlos. Carlos and his whole speel about the synagogue of self-interest. He came to the brilliant revelation that they were one and the same. Everyone had some kind of goal to be met, some goal that he was supposed to be passing them the baton to get. 

**“** \---what do you want most in the world, Vaas? **”**

Vaas gave pause, leaned back, and crossed his arms over his chest. He took a silence because he realized no one had ever asked him such a question before. In his youth, his wants were provided for him. In his decimation from the Rakyat his wants were a guessing game with violent consequences. Now the answer was elusive as ever. Looking at Jason, who looked at him not as this titan who put stars in the sky or an unruly underling, the question seemed more perplexing than ever. 

  
**“** \----I want everything. **”**


	6. Amare Vita.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amare Vita - LOVE LIFE!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be horrifically honest with you, this is a setup to something very indulgent and fluffy I have planned. Forgive me.

The plan was simple, painfully so. If it weren't for the three recon trucks that came in and out of the base to relieve the men who had been there keeping watch since that morning, it would be a simple reclamation job. But of course, there was a man on the inside who practically sat there with his hand on the alarm button for all hours of the day. The twins explained him as a wiry, coked-out weasel whose eyes bugged out at every passing van that just so happened to cross that road. They had good reason to be touchy. This compound was once a very formidable armory and the basement level had a spacious little training park where the newbies could get their sea legs without the gunshots being heard. Fort Anchor, named humorously for its curious layout, was sorely missed by the pirates of the southern island. In a way, it was something of a hitman factory. It was here that their sniper, who Jason came to know as David, learned how to operate and equip a silencer. Getting this compound back meant that Hoyt could send all his underlings here to polish up their gun work. Jason came to the rather startling revelation that many of the new blood who would be taken here would be just like Mateo.  _ Did Carlos know about this?  _

"---and what? I go in and then back out?" Jason asked, throwing a wary glance toward David as he cleaned his scope with a hankie he saved just for the occasion. They were close to some sort of camp or personal quarters, still a few miles from the enemy outpost but on an elevated hill that looked out toward the ocean. Jason could detect the faint smell of burning palmwood, the sweet aroma of a pig roasting on a spit. He was reminded of the gracious nature these people had, the many nights they had kept him fed and lodged in their homes. While these people were never warriors, the correlation between the two was still bare and exposed like a fresh wound.  _ My people, these are my people.  _

" No, vato, no. You'll go in first, yeah. But it's not that fucking simple." Vaas replied.

They were all bunched up and crowded together, heads ducked over a map that rested over the hood of Chewie's getaway car. Jason, indiscriminately, kept a healthy distance. Vaas had made it clear that he didn't want him eyeing the map, he practically choked him out over it. He told himself he didn't need it, his skill would speak for itself. 

**"** \---and then me and Paolo-- **"** Fransico threw an arm around his brother's neck.  **"** \---the two of us come in hot guns, rip shit and blaze, yes? **"**

**"** \---probably be better to keep a low profile. Guns are noisy. **"** Jason replied and to this, Fransico looked visibly hurt. 

**"** \---awww. But I bring the big boomie, boomie **."** He turned to Vaas who sat crosslegged beside the van.  **"** \--boss loves the boomie, boomie **."**

**"** Yeah. Boomie boomie is tight **."** Chewie interceded, spitting a long line of tobacco from his lip. 

"---no, no. He's right. What happens if that fuck on the center console hears us sending shit to hell? He's already raised the alarm twice this week." Vaas corrected, hand to his chin. 

"---for what?" Jason dared. 

" Fucking goats ripping up the wire fence and shit. " 

Jason wanted to smile at that, wiped the laugh away with the back of his hand. "---so, he's paranoid." 

**"** They got him on that warrior jungle boy shit. Give him a dose around the clock---motherfucker will probably never have to drink coffee again. You should know all about that, Jason. " 

Jason looked away from Vaas then, studied Paolo who looked back at him as if he were some neo painting in an art gallery.  _ What are you _ , his eyes said. Snow White quickly changed the subject. 

“---are you guys just gonna hang out here?” 

Vaas looked at him as if he had just spoken a strange unheard of dialect. "---the fuck do you mean?" 

"I mean is this our meetup point? You didn't give me a radio or nothing---do I meet back up here when I'm done?" 

Now the rest of them were looking at him as if he were spouting off madness. David scoffed. "--he wants the glory for himself, boss. Very typical." 

Vaas acted as if hadn't heard him. "---when you took the outposts from us---Citra never sent anyone with you?" 

Jason's turn to look confused. "---uh? No? It was always just me." 

" Holy shit!  _ Really _ ?" Vaas laughed. Internally he was taking notes. It was Rakyat tradition and custom to always travel and fight in a pack. This new information was interesting. " Well, that's fucking tight. Are you the terminator or some shit?" 

Jason honestly didn't know how to respond to that. One, he thought it was impossible for Vaas to complement anyone and two, he was talking about the random slaughter of his own men. Chewie was the only one who seemed to share in his boss's enthusiasm. 

" _ \---god damn _ . You blow anybody up? Get that boomie, boomie, man." Chewie asked. Jason read the room and again, changed the subject. 

"---so, you guys are coming along? How's that gonna work?" 

Vaas looked like he was delighted to answer this, he straightened himself up on the palm of his hands. "--easy, easy. David's gonna stand by and do his sniper shit. The bitch twins are gonna do their recon, make sure nothing's outta place. And Chewie's getaway driver---he's also here to make friends, yeah? Talk to some people and stop being a fucking embarrassment." 

Jason was surprised to see that no one had taken offense to the rather diminutive way Vaas had addressed them. It was as if they had recognized that his language was more or less something of a regional tongue. They all called each other  _ bitches and embarrassments  _ so the terms were almost natural, like a second language. Unpleasantly he was reminded of the bar fight back in Bangkok, the one he had started. Some no account patron had called him a pussy. That all seemed lightyears away now, a passed and long-forgotten life. Jason chose not to devote any more time to the thought.

"---and what will  _ you _ be doing, Vaas?"

Vaas grinned and for a moment Jason was reminded of the old Disney Cheshire as the other man leaned his chin deeper in his hands. Honestly, it was creepy.

"--I'm gonna keep a fucking eye on you, Jason." 

**-X-**

It was astounding to see these men work. There is always a mental cognition somewhere that tells us that our adversaries are below us. Those who are our moral inferiors are of lower consequence, they operate on the smallest forms of impulse because that is how nature made them. Despite this belief, the group of pirates had followed that map as if it were their own personal bible, tossing it between each other and discussing as if today was the Sunday of mass. And they all appeared to look to the twins for clarification and questions. The twins who were feeble and a foot shorter than the rest of them. The twins who would have been deemed too weak to become a warrior and too funny looking to fit in any clique at a California college. Here, however, they were experts. They fit into a designated place like a cog in a well-oiled machine. Here they were  _ needed _ . 

When the group arrived at the designated meet-up point a good two hundred feet from the compound, it was the twins who were first to get boots to sand and start moving. It was from this elevated place, high in the foliage of jungle trees and shrubbery, that David set up his workspace. He'd wait here with his eye close to the scope, watching every move of his teammates with the discrimination of a jury member sizing up the defendant. Chewie, of course, would stay with the getaway vehicle, but his secondary job was to watch David so that no Tigers or straggling warriors would find him in his vulnerability. It was, all and all, an impressive sort of set up. One that made Jason weary enough to wonder what Hoyt's privateers were like. 

"---all is clear boss." Fransico's voice on Vaas's radio. The static and the click brought something out in Jason. _ Suddenly this was real.  _ Like all the missions before, this was actually happening. 

"---same for me." Paolo's voice this time, it was an octave deeper than his brother’s. "I take out one man. Hid him in the bushes. Got him taking a piss. Body is hidden. " 

Vaas and company snickered. "---imagine that? Getting fucking gutted with your dick out. What a way to fucking go, huh? " 

Jason felt sick. These were Vaas's people. The family he was born into. How could someone be so crass?  _ Citra was right about one thing. He’s a fucking monster.  _

"Deploying Snow White." Vaas said, clicking off and turning to David. " Time to burn the trash." 

It was almost chilling how Vaas's voice changed, going from joking and humorous to deathly serious. To Jason, he sounded a lot like those mob bosses you see in movies. Calm, collected, but menacing. All the while he was staring at Vaas again. This time it was without his glasses, those got knocked off during their little scuffle in the van. Vaas was staring back, brow furrowed as if he had found a stain in some upholstery.

"I'm sorry, are you deaf? Do you need a fucking invitation?" 

Jason looked quickly away, raising the neck scarf over his nose. "---so--how am I gonna  _ burn the trash _ ? Do you got my bow?" 

Vaas didn't respond, looped a machete into Jason's hand. Ironically, it was the same one he had been threatening him with not a day prior. Jason looked at it, turned it around in his hand to study the flakes of rust and blood that still lived within the jagged edges. They looked like the teeth of a hungry, wounded animal. 

"---no guns? ‘Case I get caught--" 

"You will give them an honorable death." 

It was eery how much like Citra that sounded. Jason looked at Vaas who was loading up a sub-machine gun. He cocked the chamber, fed a trail of bullets through the seem.

“---after you, princess.” 

**-X-**

He would be lying if he said he didn't appreciate the fresh air in his lungs. How long had it been since he had seen sunlight, the endless height of a blue sky and clouds? It felt like eons. Through the trees, the sun managed its rays down onto him in a jaded ever moving patchwork. He was reminded of childhood, lazy afternoons at his grandmother's cabin in Minnesota.  _ Pink lemonade and sugar cookies on a red checkered picnic blanket. _ He dashed the thought out of his head, replaced it with the concentration it took for him to look for the sound of Vaas's footsteps.  _ How was he so quiet?  _

"--oh, you reminded me." 

Jason whirled around, raising his machete but stopping when he realized who it was. 

"---what the fuck, Vaas--" Jason started, getting down on his haunches and looking toward David who was now completely eclipsed by green. "---I thought we were fucking doing something." 

"--don't be fucking rude." Vaas said, kneeling down in front of him. He brought two fingers in a gesturing motion. " Come here." 

Jason stalled. "--what?" 

"We need to get you fucking fitted for hearing aids or some shit because the amount of times I have to fucking repeat myself--" 

" Okay! Okay!  _ God-- _ " Jason whispered, coming in closer. Vaas reached over him, pulled off the scarf. Jason caught his hands. 

"---Carlos said I need to keep a low profile." 

"You really love your mama, don't you?" Vaas replied, pulling it free and from Jason's hands. "--why the fuck do you need to conceal your identity if we're gonna kill every motherfucker here?" 

"---if someone sees me---" 

"Then they know Citra fucked up. We add to her laundry list of mistakes. First me and then you? That's fucking embarrassing. " Vaas replied, storing the scarf in his back pocket. 

"---besides. It's poetic fucking irony, no? The excommunicated warrior goes on a murder spree. The last thing they see as they bleed out? The very motherfucker they sent to die. I like that." 

Jason didn't want to admit it but he liked that too. The thought filled him with an excitement he had to search for a word to describe _. Euphoria, yes.  _ The idea of choking the life out of the same people who watched his mutilation was simply euphoric. He looked away, pretended to survey the compound that was now just out of reach. Before he could really think to suggest to move on, Vaas was tugging at the collar of Jason's shirt. Jason looked at him long enough to realize that he looked different. He was now missing that curious green necklace he wore, the one that looked like a jagged tooth. The black leather string went over Jason's head so that now he wore it. 

"---uh?" Jason started. 

“It's Jade." Vaas replied as if what he was saying was something obvious. "It's good luck." 

"I don't need luck." 

" Jason, you're dumb as fuck and your back is ripped to hell. You need everything you can get. " 

Jason studied the necklace, held it between his fingers, and admired the gleam it made in the sun. He was reminded of the thousands of times he had seen the Rakyat wear these, the many different carved faces they would make into pendants and religious icons. He wondered how long Vaas had had this, how he came upon it, and what sort of person he was when he did. This bled into a thought of the person Jason Brody had been in California. He compared him to the man that now sat fiddling with the same necklace Vaas had had for God knows how long. Vaas looked over his shoulder, wondered why Jason seemed to be in another one of his trances.  _ Always staring. Always quiet.  _ He hated this about Jason. Hated that he was impossible to fucking read yet predictable at the same time.

"--you're fucking weird, man." Vaas said.

"  _ You're _ fucking weird." Jason replied, lifting the collar of his shirt so that the necklace was against his skin."---let's get this shit over with."

**-X-**

If there were any inhibitions Jason had about this, they were gone now. Like the snow slow to dissipate toward the new spring, the trepidation he had about killing the Rakyat had melted off in sleets. Now the world made sense again. It existed on the cold and immovable paradigm of kill or be killed. There were no Pirates or Hoyt Volker, no friends locked in cages back in the East. These things seemed inconsequential now, they existed in the back of his cognition like the delinquent behind the sober driver. Now all he thought about was how easily this knife slid into the shoulder blade and up into the jugular of this warrior. He ruminated on how keenly this body fell as Jason pulled a new corpse into the vacancy of an unguarded outhouse. It was here, crouched and nearly on his knees, that Jason got his first glimpse of the outside world. Paolo was there, slowly creeping open the backdoor that led into a once plentiful collection of guns. He whispered a half-hearted good luck but Jason never heard it. 

**-X-**

Watching Jason as an audience member was something like watching a practiced mechanic delegate with a clean engine. Vaas, who followed at a close distance but never intervened, couldn't help but wonder how someone born and bred in California could have such a callous composure. He was efficient. Horrifically so and each dead man they passed hadn't the faintest glimpse of life left on him. The kills were clean, swift, and deliberate. It was the typical fashion of a warrior.  _ Kill for the sake of killling and leave nothing in the way of emotional intrigue. _ While Jason was deadly in his practice, there was a peculiar way in which he moved that would suggest he was enjoying himself. Vaas had only ever seen Jason smile in the playbacks left in his phone. That carefree, joyous socialite had died shoulder to shoulder with his brother. It appeared the socialite had been exhumed however because Vaas could clearly see a sense of triumph in the way Jason hovered over one dying man's chest as he put the entire blade and his collective weight into his midsection. He did this curious waiting period with every kill, towering over his new victim as if he were getting ready to devour them. 

Vaas found it extremely entertaining. It was the sort of thing you saw in nature. The stupid, aimless calf gets mauled by the tiger because he's grazing too far from the pack. In a way it's funny. Funny because the poor fuck on the losing end never sees it coming and sad for that same reason. This thought branched off into something more obscene as he watched Jason play a game of  _ find the intruder _ with two gun-toting meatheads. There were times, whether he was high or not, that he came to the assumption that nothing was real. The assumption that the entirety of the world and all its dying creatures were a fabrication he'd made up just to humor himself. Watching Jason this way, observing him as some vouyer in a theater, made him consider the idea that the dynamics of power had shifted. It was a deranged thought, he realized that, but it told him to stay as close and as vigilant of Jason as possible. He was dimly aware that this was a rabbit hole into another one of his obsessions. _ Like Citra. Like the drugs. Like Volker _ . He'd have to find a way to nip it in the bud later. This thought process was interrupted when the button happy weasel by the alarm started to get jumpy. He was last one standing by way of the process of elimination and Jason was in the perfect position for a takedown.

Carefully Snow White crept up to his prey, crouching down and padding closer with the careful consideration of a Tiger on a lost calf. Whatever it was. Whether it was the chance of a change of light or the man's own overdeveloped senses, he spun around with enough quickness to rival a viper's striking bite. Jason, seeing the inevitability of a struggle, lept for him but was caught abruptly by the butt of a rifle. Jason went sprawling and neither he or Vaas had realized the alarm had gone off until they heard the screech. This all paled in comparison to what Jason heard next. Even through all the commotion, the radio waves that said reinforcement was coming from the east, Jason still heard it. 

This man was humming. It was low, guttural, but it was a chant that sounded like the incantation of snakes. All at once, Jason remembered the feeling of cold stone beneath him. He remembered the feeling of Citra's thighs straddling him from behind as she dug the knife into his flesh. He remembered Rangi in his ceremonial paint, the stink and copper of his own blood and torn open flesh. He screamed and Vaas did not have to guess why because he knew this form of mental conditioning well. He had introduced it to Volker in the form of violent techno music bassed up to high frequency. The warrior, who was now standing over Jason in the traditional pre-battle pose, was disposed of with a choice bullet to the head. The damage, however, was already done. 

"---whakama. whakama. whakama." Jason said this in a mantra, scrambling on his ass and into an adjacent filing cabinet behind him. Papers scattered everywhere, Vaas jumped over the desk. 

" No. No whakama. Fuck---Fuck!" Vaas offered, grabbing Jason by the biceps and forcing him to his feet. Jason kept reciting it though, eyes wild and crazed as he stared up at the rotating ceiling fan. Outside, Vaas could hear David fire three shots. 

"---Jason. Look at me. Jason."  He wouldn't so Vaas forced him to, grabbing the sides of his face and forcing his line of sight onto him. Jason, coming out of his daze, came to in a world of a drilling siren and the stench of a murdered warrior’s blood. 

"---cursed me. She cursed me." 

Vaas laughed, threw his head back, and pressed Jason's cheeks together so that his lips formed a pout. " Stupid fucking white boy! You think that shit's real?" 

Below them, the floor they came from, the sounds of feet hitting the floor became maddening. The stragglers David had missed. Chewie would already be down in his riot gear and a submachine gun in a few minutes. Jason, however, noticed none of this. He was still primarily lost in the vision of his worst known memory, transfixed on the idea of his own damnation. But slowly, irrevocably, these things began to dissipate. In their place, there was a pair of green eyes. The mantra was replaced by the feeling of fingers gripping his hair, wrists, and arms that filled his hands and touched his skin. This was real. This touch, this physicality, this was real. Vaas was real. 

"---whakhama." 

" None of this is fucking real, man." Vaas interrupted, voice low and careful as if divulging a great secret. "The entire world, all this bullshit, all the lies and the fucking misery---" 

Paolo came bursting in, his knife lodged deep into the back of another warrior whose finger on the trigger made the bullets in his automatic ricochet off the walls. "---boss, I put on boomie boomie." 

"---none of it is fucking real." 

Something exploded to the right of them, the wall blew out and shards of wood and plank began to spur past them. But to them, these were inconsequential. Jason stared at Vaas, mouth partially agape and breath slowing. Vaas let go of his face and Jason's arms dropped from his like a ragdoll's. 

_ The world is a diagonal. I am the balancing point.  _

  
  


"---she lied to me." 

Vaas grinned, put the dead man's rifle in Jason's hands. 

" I'm gonna make a warrior out of you. " 

**-X-**

With an automatic back in his hands and the heat of the hyperactive explosive behind him, Jason felt like he was back home. Not home in California, obviously, but the feeling was something akin to sinking into a favored hobby after a long day of pretending to care. It was the sweet release of a cold beer on a weekend, an orgasm right at the tip-top of climax. Killing via the close contact of a blade was one thing but slaughtering a man with a pumped-up automatic was something else. It was an invigorating power, a strength that made the eyes dilute and the muscles tense. He understood now why Army veterans could come home and sleep soundly next to their wives. He understood why his grandfather had done it after Vietnam. The gun made it all so impersonal. You were pressing a trigger, aiming a barrel. The machine, that damnable dragon with the flaming mouth, that was the one responsible. 

He didn't know how but he was outside now, drenched in his own sweat and the blood of his enemies. It was a glorious feeling, stepping out into the sunshine where the few surviving warriors had no choice but to see their forsaken son as their slaughterer. He was mildly aware that he was grinning as he did it. This war machine, this prism of flesh and bone, it was no longer Jason Brody. It was something else entirely. It was a husk, a vessel, a patriarch of the ideas and inspiration that overtook his fancy. Once he had prayed at the synagogue of higher learning. The old mantra of diploma, wife, and then death. Then it was replaced by the constant search of the next high, the daring stunts of a rock climber. After that came Citra, the valor and prestige of an old world that seemed as mystic as it was promising. What laid there presently he wasn't sure. There was no formality to it, no institution to report back to and question. To put it in layman's terms,  _ he was free _ . Free from the delegation of belonging to someone's group or pack. He wanted to revel in this new freedom, he wanted to bathe in it like he did with the warm waters of the Bahamas the summer before this one. But there was something in his way, rather, someone. 

Before he had made it outside the compound, Vaas had done the most peculiar and abnormal thing Jason had ever seen a man do in the heat of battle .  _ He cheered.  _ Cheered when Jason took down a heavyweight warrior who slammed into Jason's midsection with a bash. It was the kind of sound you would hear at ball games and tailgates, the cheerful victory of a teammate scoring touchdown.  _ We're equals. We want the same things here _ . Jason wanted to say he detested this, that Vaas's approval of him meant as much as the spider’s fancies toward the webbed over fly. But he still found himself constantly looking over his shoulder after each new kill. Not because he feared Vaas would take this as an opportunity to get cute,  _ as he liked to say _ , but because he wanted to see if this new adoration would continue.  _ Did he see me dispatch the sniper with a knife throw? Is he mad the machete broke off in that guy's back? _ All these questions didn't matter because the two of them were inevitably separated. Vaas was taken to chase a fleeing warrior out a backdoor and Jason was more keen to mow everyone down who was missed by Chewie and David. 

When the final warrior fell, clutching his chest before bleeding out, Jason sat and basked in the sunlight for what felt like an hour. He closed his eyes, marveled at the red interior under his lids, and drank in the creeping feeling of calm he felt now that he'd won. In the back of his mind, he thought about how easy it would be for him to turn tail and start his efforts in on Vaas and his men. He'd be deathly efficient, almost villainous with the added element of surprise. But something changed his mind. His back was miserable. No doubt more of the sealed over scabbing had been pried loose now and he could already feel his new shirt seeping with his own blood. How in the world had he done all this in this state? He hadn't even felt it until now. 

"--and then when he moved _ like that  _ I fucking spotted him. Poca meirda---ran away like a liitle bitch." 

Amazing how distinct Vaas's voice was to everyone else's. He heard either Paolo or Fransico make sounds of agreement, sure but none of them were as loud or prominent as Vaas Montenegro. Jason followed it to the source, stopping only once to catch his rapidly losing breathe on the side of a wall. When he found them, their little group, they were kicking around a severed head like a soccer ball. 

"--hablar del diablo!" Vaas shouted, standing atop a forgotten jeep. "He's here! The fucking terminator is here!" 

It was Fransico who bum-rushed him first, Paolo second with David following closer in the rear. They were all over him, shouting words of amazement and congratulation. Fransico even smacked him on the back once or twice which caused Jason to double over. He wanted to vomit. 

"---Vaas." Jason started, hands going to his knees. "---are we fucking done now?" 

Vaas crooned from his vantage point, swinging his legs over the side of the jeep's open trunk in clear, child-like amusement. "---hmm. That would break tradition, hermano." 

The men snickered. 

"Tradition?" Jason dared, feeling even more nauseous at the thought. 

" Si, si. We celebrate every victory we get. You live life to fucking love it, you know?" 

"---and we can't celebrate back at the compound?" 

Vaas grinned. "I'm not having a fucking party at my house. Have these grubby fucks dirty the furniture and shit--" 

Chewie let out a loud belly laugh, grabbed Jason's shoulders. "You earned it, man. Tossin' those jungle folk like you did." 

As he was forced back into that shitty van, Jason realized he would have no choice but to party with pirates. 


	7. Respirare.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Respirare - Breathe Out. Enjoy a respite. To take care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was completely self-indulgent and you can probably skip it if you care about plot? I just need Vaas and Jason to occupy a space without killing each other, even if its overtly fluffy and dumb. 
> 
> Enjoy.

In reality, Jason had only ever heard of places like this existing in the scams he’d trash out of his spam folder. Sure, Oliver's grandfather had a cabin situated somewhere in the Eastern Alps, another glasshouse out in the geometric shapes of Hawaii, but Jason had never been to these places. The idea of the private sea house, the secluded slice of heaven banked on some remote island was completely foreign to him. It existed in magazines and action movies, stories that were more or less fabricated by the very minds that saw them as a reality. 

"---what the fuck?" Jason started, eyes squinting out toward the visor of the van's only window. What he saw was a fairly modern blue painted house with white bay windows. Even with its chipping paint and obvious disrepair, there was something about it that practically screamed New English architecture. It sat atop a cliffside, one that leaned down toward a small field that abruptly dropped into the endless abyss of the ocean. It was quaint in its own way, homely the way any other beach house should be. 

“--- _that?_ That’s your party house?” Jason said, disbelieving. “Don’t you have strippers and shit at your compound?” 

"--- _jesus fuck._ Strippers he says, the fucking _pendejo._ Are we horny, Jason? Hungry for pussy? " All present company besides Snow White burst into laughter. Vaas was for the first time sitting fairly far away from Jason. Stupidly, Jason's mind went to all the times his mother had warned him about things like vehicle safety and _click it or ticket_. Vaas was sitting with the chair as far back as it would go, knees buckled and boots caught atop the dashboard as his hands worked on rolling something between paper. A joint, maybe. 

"--beats hanging around a bunch of dicks." Jason muttered, arms crossing as he leaned back in a childish sort of glower. 

"---now he's gonna start fucking crying. _Waa waa_ that's all he fucking does---" Just then Vaas snatched the idling wahine off her place above the radio and chucked it over the chained over separation window and at Jason. "There's your fucking stripper you sad fuck. Stick your dick in that, yeah? It’s perfect size, amigo. I promise you, you’ll fit right in."

“---how do you know that? Did you try it first?” Miraculously Jason had caught it, waved the miniature belly dancer between his fingers so that her ass shook. “--this your exe?” 

Amazingly, Vaas wasn’t over the railing and choking him again. Paolo looked between Vaas and Jason, visibly nervous. Vaas carefully turned, looked at Jason. 

“I want you to ask yourself why you’re worrying about my fucking dick.” 

“You fucking started it!” 

“No, vato, no, I gave you a suggestion to your fucking problem, you start asking me about where my dick has been. Like a bad fucking whore. _Puta._ It’s okay-- _you can have a fucking turn too_ \--jealousy is very ugly.” 

“--ya’ll are childish.” Chewie grumbled, putting the car in park as Jason was just starting to get hot. 

“Race you, motherfucker!” Whoever Vaas was asking to race him, they clearly didn’t get the immediate message. The rest of them were left dumbfounded as Vaas raced up to the port, hooing and hollering as he nearly collapsed the door down. David ran in after him, followed by Fransico who was consistently slower. Chewie followed begrudgingly, mumbling about how much he hated running. Paolo, who was the only one who appeared to notice that Jason was hurt, stayed behind. 

“---are you okay, Snow White?” He asked, sliding the door open and gingerly climbing out. 

“---I guess.” Jason started, following but groaning as soon as his feet hit the floor. 

“The jungle people---did they get you?” 

“Something like that.” Jason started, eyes squinting as a red glare caught him there. _How long had they been gone? What would the others think?_ Absently he looked to an ocean that spread itself far beyond the lines of any foreseeable sight. It reflected the setting sky’s endless hues of red and orange, the sun looking like the bright pit at the center of an apricot. Somewhere, beyond all that water and distance, his mother was waiting for her boys to come home. 

“The boss really likes you.” Paolo said, a touch of weariness in his voice. 

Jason rolled his eyes, looked to the door of the house that was now sporting various intrusions of light. “---he’s got a funny way of fucking showing it.” 

Paolo shook his head. “---no. He would never let us talk about his dick like that. Or anyone else. You must have impressed him somehow.” 

Jason wasn’t seeing the correlation between dick jokes and sudden, surplus respect but he chocked it up to one underling’s wishful thinking and the ramblings of a psychotic. The little moment he and Vaas had in the middle of the compound was nothing more than a military general rallying his soldier back into battle. He’d tell himself this and drop the subject like a balloon stringed to a bell. Vaas, for all extensive purposes, was still his enemy. Paolo gingerly tugged on the hemmed shirt of Jason's shoulder. 

“---come. _Unisciti a noi._ The drinks here are the best on the island.” 

**-X-**

Honestly, the last thing on his mind were the drinks. Even less so the lines of coke and rolled joints that came thereafter. For the first time in his life, Jason Brody was the death of the party. He felt uncannily like an old man, sitting there in the corner with his aching back and tired disposition. Mindlessly he rubbed his temples, tried to think of literally anything else besides the nagging need for a good nine-hour rest. What made it worse was that no one seemed to fucking notice he was there in his abject misery. They all sat around a base coffee table snorting their powders and lighting their bowls in a collected trance, their movements mirroring eachother. Even so, the college underachiever in him shook himself from his mossy crypt. Despite the physical limitations he felt, the miniature party did look like fun. 

_After all, hadn't he, the champion of tonight's little shindig deserved some fun?_ He contemplated the thought, bathed it in the ice and cold water of consideration. But after all this, after he tortured himself on one aching thought and the next, he decided ultimately it wasn’t worth the more physical pain it would cause him. Even worse he hated to think of this as some sort of cruel joke or trick that the rest of them were all in on. What would become of his pride, _that was already stretching itself thin on its thread_ , if he were to mosey on over there and get pistol-whipped for all his troubles? Unpleasantly he was reminded of all the times Riley, who had been quite the little tubby in his preadolescence, would come home with wet lashes and red cheeks. _So and so didn't let me sit with them. So and so tripped me on the bus._ And ever the vagrant middle child, out older brother Jason went to kick the shit out of whoever it was that had hurt the poor boy's feelings. He wondered if this was what it was like to be the awkward social misfit, the stereotypical loner type who took his lunches in the bathroom stall and teacher's lounge. He wondered if this was how Riley felt all those years in grade school and this burdened him with an understanding that was as shocking as it was uncomfortable. The only difference between them now was that Jason was without his big brother to come in and even the playing grounds. No, these men, Vaas in particular, had put his savior under the ground. He was irrevocably and undeniably alone. He left these pirates to be just that. Alone. 

**-X-**

This was a very nice home. Though to Vaas, this was never something to note or care about. The people who had contracted this little vacation home came out to visit once and were immediately scalped by the natives who had yet to catch their underpaid construction workers. A middle-aged philanthropist and his wife, the two of them had made their living conning housewives into believing the secret to losing their unsightly wrinkles was palm oil and a secret ingredient only they knew about. How fitting it was then that the Rakyat had burned them alive wrapped in palm leaves and scattered their ashes amongst the sacred tree in the east. The secret ingredient in this sense, being a ritualistic massacre and a few touches of tobacco to get rid of the stench of burning flesh. 

The Pirates had made it a point to ransack the place before converting it to a party space. Jewelry, clothes, and the odd photograph frames were exchanged for what meager pocket change they could accumulate, the rest was either burnt or left lying in its respective drawer like a mummy still in its tomb. One such artifact was the framed diploma that rested on the eastward wall. A doctorate in business ethics to a Mr. Phillip Daven. _Whatever the fuck that meant._ Paolo, who was just as prolific as an insomniac as his boss, noted that they were out of rolling paper around 2 a.m. It was only when Vaas chanced a look over his shoulder that he saw the otherwise worthless little diploma as something useful. While Paolo came dangerously close to overdosing in his sleep, Vaas crept up to fetch the paper and noticed a door slightly ajar. One that was normally kept shut tight. It was then that his mind, addled with whatever he had taken over the last eight hours, remembered Jason Brody had once been there with them. 

**-X-**

Frankly, he couldn't tell why he entered the room when he did. He had been completely certain that Jason Brody was somewhere miles from here. He had already started the mental preparation it would take to station men out in the field to find him. Once the American was located, once he was inevitably discharged and taken out, he imagined they'd have no choice but to put him down like a rabid dog. It would be the humane thing to do anyway. Lest the Rakyat or Hoyt Volker's men got wind of his continued existence, the only thing Jason Brody could look forward to in this life was a prolonged torture session climaxing an end. At least with these men, his death would be quick, as painless as a gunshot between the eyes could be, of course.

But alas, Jason Brody was not somewhere galavanting on the South Island. He was here, spread out like a starfish on his belly with his crossed arms cushioning his head. In the dull light, Vaas noted how the square of medical tape over Jason's back looked like the stagnated lens of a lighthouse through fog. _Must have taken the shirt off when he realized how bad he fucking smelt._ The rest of him, his arms and legs, and torso, these existed in a realm bathed in the perpetual animosity of shadow. He couldn't see Jason, not clearly, and the thought of this made him feel uncertain and mildly present. He was forced from the easy, comatose state given to him by mollies and tablets. Now he was being guided back to reality, back to this strange concoction of the past and present. In a subtle way, he hated Jason for this. 

Nevertheless, he persisted nearer, coveting his footfalls as not to jostle the old floorboards that were known to creak. Somewhere the croon of an old clock sang it's somber tune, idling its hands softly past 3 a.m. The bedspread was something like a polyester and when Jason stirred on it, it glided with his movements like a snake's sliding from its old skin. In a diluted way, he could tell Jason knew he was there. He didn't spring up, yell or attack, but Vaas knew he was on his guard. 

"---stay there." He called to the darkness. "---don't fucking move." 

There was no response but he knew he had been identified. Jason, already assuming the worst, imagined Vaas standing there with a pistol right to his head. If he was frightened, Vaas didn't detect it. He was in the doorway, the hand that rested on the frame teetering on its grip as he moved his weight from one foot to the other. Jason held his breath, formed his hands to fists under his pillow. 

"---if you fucking move, if you even think about it, I'm gonna shoot you." Vaas said this in a quiet, matter of fact tone. Strange for him, since Jason had just assumed Vaas never learned how to whisper. Strangely enough, his footfalls became distant and a light was flicked on somewhere else. _Had he left? Did he really just come in here, demand that he sit still and then fucking leave?_ Jason leaned over to peer and see if what he expected was true. From this awkward position, he could only catch the thin strip of white light cascading from an open door. When that light switched off and he could hear footsteps coming back, he assumed his regular position. The door was closed again but the light wasn't on. The moonlight, slitted through some closed blinds, was the only reprieve from total darkness. Suddenly Jason missed the comfort of suburban life, the soft but knowing intrigue of a street lamp beaming out his bedroom window. 

"---Vaas?" He called into the void. He was answered with a rough hand pushing his head deeper into the pillow. 

"Shut the fuck up." The bed creaked as it was burdened by a second weight. Lucky this was a queen-sized mattress.

"---what are you--" 

"---do you not understand English now? You don't fucking know what it means to be quiet? Shut the fuck up now or you die." 

Jason didn't have to see him to know that Vaas was pointing a finger at him. That's what he did when he was barking orders, after all, point at you and get all testy. He rolled his eyes. When Jason felt the edges of his bandage began to lift, he started to sit up. 

"--what are you doing?" Full volume, Vaas pushed him back down.

"Fixing this piece of shit." Vaas said, stretching his patience out like a garden hose. "---you fucked it up. Looks like ass." 

" _You_ fucked it up, Vaas." 

" Did I?" Vaas was lifting the bandage now, the edges left curious black markings where the adhesive had drunken in the lint left from the shirt. "--refresh my memory. Why is this my fucking fault again?" 

" Pushing me in the van? Fucking jumping all over me?" 

Vaas seemed to hum as if entertaining a child's make-believe tale of fairies and ogres. " _Muy bien. Muy bien_. And why did I do that? Was that not to put your bitch ass in line?" 

Jason bit down on the pillow when the adhesive caught one of his many scars. Thankfully Vaas had been merciful and taken it off slowly. His voice brought Jason back to some semblance of presence, a landmark back to reality. "Think hard, cabrón. What made me push you?" 

It was amazing how little Jason could recall the instances that made him angry. There had been so many new moments of blind fury that they all started to bleed together in a mass. Mildly he remembered kicking out, wanting the map. The bandage was off now, thrown carelessly by the wayside. 

"--fine." Jason said. "But you should have let me see the fucking map." 

Something cool and wet touched his skin then. A cloth of some sort. 

"Mhm. And let you know where we're going, what landmarks and shit are close by so you can make a fucking run for it? _No lo creo._ " 

The rhythmic lay of the cloth was surprisingly gentle and deliberate. Jason hitched his breath when it slowly came upon his lower back where the worst of the scarring was. Vaas noticed this, eased up a tad. 

"---I told you--I'm not gonna pull anything crazy while my friends are with you." 

Vaas hummed again, clearly not believing him. 

"---what?" Jason said, rising but being guided back down with a palm to his head. Vaas went to work on those creases left by the adhesive, taking a thumb clad in cloth and massaging the man's sides until it came clean. Jason went lax a little, enjoying the motion on his sore muscles. He groaned a little, squeezed his eyes shut until he saw ghostly circles behind his lids. 

"It makes you feel good, yeah? To save them, be their fucking hero." Vaas said this in a low whisper, stopping his motion with the cloth and resting it beside him. 

"--I don't--" 

"--but it's funny, it's a real fucking coincidence--" Vaas continued, this time with something cool and malleable on his fingers, a salve some kind. "--none of those cocksuckers have any fucking scars." 

"---it's not like that. That's not how this works." Jason mumbled, feeling one of the man's fingers skillfully trace a raised edge that went all the way to his shoulder blade and down into the middle of his spine. Beside him he felt Vaas's knee press in closer, two fingers gliding down Jason’s spine. 

"--- _uh huh._ Then fucking enlighten me. What's it like?" 

"---it's like--" How would he explain this? How would he make someone like Vaas understand? "---they can't defend themselves." 

"They're weak?" Vaas extenuated this with a swirl of his thumb of Jason's upper tail bone, the rest of Snow White's body followed suit moving upward. He hated the fact that it felt good. Hated that he was enjoying the other man's touch. " The weak are the excess of the earth." 

That was a Rakyat saying. It sounded like heresy on Vaas's tongue. 

"--you're trying to make me fuck them over." 

Vaas chuckled, wiped the cloth over Jason's back once more. "---no, no, hermano, no. You see that's the difference between me and my sister, right? The difference here is that I could care less where your loyalties lie. As long as you do what I fucking say when I say it? You can have all the friends you want. " 

"---then why--" He was lost again, tired and feeling a tad bit overwhelmed with the first gentle touch he had received since coming here. He was halfway angry that Vaas had stopped when he did. Jason chanced a look over his shoulder, saw Vaas shaded in the blue of moonlight and cooling ambiance. Subtly he was reminded of his father's paintings, the somber oil paintings that almost always depicted the subject amid a state of decomposition. Vaas appeared to notice him, hands rubbing down the length of that neck scarf Jason had worn earlier that day. 

"--can I help you?" 

"---uh. Yeah?" Jason replied, studying the curious way Vaas's eyes shown out in the dark. They were always green but now they looked crystalline, two frozen over ponds. "---do you have any other bandages?" 

Vaas shrugged, eyes glancing down again at Jason's back. 

"If you want my educated fucking opinion, you should probably let it breathe, man. Sweating on it and shit is fucking nasty." 

"--you're a doctor now?" 

"Oh, absolutely." He grinned, bringing an arm around the back of his neck and stretching until something popped. " I've seen worse believe it or not. My sister loves this sort of shit." 

"---Carlos wanted to keep it covered." 

That made Vaas's smile falter. He leaned back, swiveled his mouth to the side as his knee pressed into the back of Jason's thigh.

"Well yeah, gives him the opportunity to talk your fucking ear off, no? He give you that sob story about his son and his fucking puta wife?" 

"---not the wife." Jason mused, watched as Vaas's eyes lidded to slits. _Had he slept that night?_ "---he said he didn't understand it. He didn't know why Citra did this to me." 

And like the trigger to a volatile solution, the very utterance of his sister's name made Vaas stand. Talking about her too much almost always ruined the mood and he didn't have nearly enough control substances to get back down once she inevitably started him up. 

"You smell like shit." 

"--excuse me?" Jason slowly began to sit up, winced a little as a few scars were disturbed by his movement. 

" I said you smell like fucking shit. I told Carlos to give you a fucking bath before we left, what happened to that?" 

Jason, feeling slightly embarrassed, looked to the floor for his shirt. "---uh. Your showers are different from the ones back home." 

Vaas made a face. "---were you afraid to drop the fucking soap or some shit?" 

Jason gave an immature chuckle, Vaas's brow deepened in its furrow. _Oh, he was serious._

"---I don't know. I guess I didn't want to pull my dick out in front of a bunch of guys who want me dead?" 

Vaas considered this, seemed to have no answer or retort. Without looking at Jason he turned on his heel to leave. "Shower's in the room over this one. Fucking use it before you make me sick." 

**-X-**

Turns out there really was a shower in the room over the next. With hot water too, thank God. It was one of those nifty clawed bath types with the overhead compartment, the ones that were all the rage in the early fifties. Even without the soap and shampoo, washing out whatever had been calling his bird's nest a home for the last month or so was almost heavenly. For a moment he forgot all about his captive friends at the compound. Keeping his back away from the piping water, he even started to forget the reason he needed to do so in the first place. He even compartmentalized the recollection of how the wound got there, a memory that was quickly becoming a worthy contender for the worst he had. It was only when he stepped out of the shower and looked at his pink, agitated flesh, that he finally came back down from Valhalla and crashed. He hadn’t realized how hot the water was, he thought about this as he wiped a hand across the fogged up mirror to get a closer look at the bags under his eyes. How long had it been since he had felt warm, comfortable? He reasoned that if he ever got out of this place, _alive of course_ , he wouldn’t take these things for granted. Each shower from here on out, was a short vacation of bliss. All this contemplation was stopped when he heard something fall and crash beneath him. _The room where he assumed the rest of the merry band of men were sleeping._ He began slipping on the pants that always rested too low on the hips. Right before passing the mirror again, he noticed a pang of green still resting over his chest. Yes, there it was. Vaas’s little good luck charm. He pocketed the necklace, shaking his hair of all its watering gems. 

_Jade must be good luck. It got him a shower._

For modesty purposes, he paid a visit back to his bedroom to find a Hawaiian shirt that was nearly two sizes too big. He swallowed the similarities it bore to the one Buck Hughes wore and how this look was accented by the fact that he was wearing it unbuttoned and open chested. Idly he considered going back to sleep but the fact that Vaas had already disturbed him once made the thought unappealing. Instead, he thought it best to survey his surroundings. One never knew when they would need a clever place to hide and take cover. Downstairs he was greeted by the soft somber snores of sleeping men. Two on the loveseat, the twins. And one on the main sofa, Chewie with his arms and legs lumbering over the sides. David was said to be somewhere in his post, keeping an eye out for the very slim chance they'd be getting some native visitors. Jason could hear his voice somewhere above them, chuckling to someone over the radio.

_Where was Vaas?_

Not in the kitchen. Not in any of the two spare bedrooms or their respective bathrooms. _Not in the house, it looked like._ And for reasons completely unknown to him, this filled him with a panic that quickly turned to anxiety. It was like having a mine idling under your feet, heaven knows when the timer will go off and the bomb will explode. Soon enough this anxiety led him past the kitchen that would leave him toward a door to the outside. It was through another door, one with stairs no less, that he began to hear that familiar sound of something falling and crashing. Feeling like he was growing hot on some trail, he followed the stairs down to investigate. 

To his surprise, the occupants of this house had a wine cellar. Naturally, his mind went to Poe's _Cask of Amontillado_. How fitting it would be to find Vaas down here plastering some poor soul into some masonry under a tune of manic revenge. This wasn't the case of course. Over the rows and rows of bottles that rested dark and foreboding in their shelves, Vaas stood on a ladder picking them from their spaces and dropping the few he deemed unfit. One such bottle came crashing down right when Jason came in. 

"---what are you doing?" Jason demanded, stepping over a collection of broken glass and spilled wine. 

Vaas looked up at him as if hearing another’s voice for the first time in eons.

"---I fucking _hate_ white wine." 

Down went another one, this time Jason saw it in time and avoided glass in his bare feet. Vaas double taked at Jason, brow furrowed. 

"---what are _you_ fucking doing?" 

"Wondering why you hate white wine. It's good with pasta, actually." 

"No, no, no. I mean why do you got that nasty fucking shirt on? You look like someone's fucking _abuelo._ " 

Jason looked at himself, shrugged. "--it was either this or nothing." 

"Didn't I tell you to let your fucking scars air dry? I swear, it's one ear--" Vaas made a sharp whistle through his teeth, turned back to his work. "---out the fucking other with you. _Tan trágico._ " 

Jason sauntered closer, caught another bottle from Vaas's hand before he had the chance to chuck it. "---I'm not walking around here shirtless." 

Vaas surprisingly let him have the bottle, shook his head. "---you're so shy, mi princessa. Like a fucking pussy, you know? _Tan recatada, muy delicada._ " 

Jason didn't know shit about Spanish but he knew the - _a_ consonances almost always meant something feminine. "---fuck you." 

"Fuck me? No, no, no please. Fuck you for your piece of shit fashion sense." 

It was taking a while, but Jason was quickly learning how to avoid dust-ups with Vaas. Instead of starting another one of their pointless arguments, he chose to focus all his attention on the hanging bottle opener that was on an adjacent post. When he made it over there, when Vaas looked at him as if he had just shot him in the foot, Jason grinned at him. 

_So this is what you're like when you don't get the attention you're after. How cute._

"---no, hermano. No, no booze for you." Vaas started, jumping from his ladder and crunching some glass under his boots. He caught the bottle from Jason's hand, rested it on the island that was once going to be used as a bar stand. 

Jason groaned. "---but you said you fucking hate white wine." 

Vaas grinned, brought himself up on one of the bar stools. "--you have to earn it, honey. Show me some good behavior.”

Jason rolled his eyes. "--you're really insufferable sometimes." 

Vaas began to tug at the collar of Jason's island shirt. Snow White immediately flinched, moved backward, and assumed the worst. "---what the fuck!? I don't want the wine that bad!" 

Vaas laughed, reached out and grabbed the collar again. "What? Do you think I want you to suck my dick? Relax, vato, relax." He pulled on it again, looping a shoulder out of the shirt. "---I just want this ugly fucking shirt out of my sight." 

Jason paused, looking at Vaas straight in the eyes. Amazing how this man continuously surprised him. "---you're really weird." 

"-- _you're_ fucking weird." Vaas shot back, getting Jason's arms free from the shirt. "--and you're fucking stupid too. Look--" He showed him the few traces of blood that had soaked through the shirt. "---see why I told you to let that shit breathe?" 

Jason didn't answer, only glared. Vaas in turn brought the shirt and jostled it over Snow White's hair, attempting to dry it. "--but you did shower which honestly, hermano---was a favor to everyone." 

Jason frowned, braced himself for the rather rough treatment over his head. He stopped Vaas at his wrists, looking at him. "---that sounds like good behavior to me. _Shower for wine._ " He reached behind Vaas, was guided back when the other man took him by the shoulders and made him face the wine bottles again. 

“---you’re not slick, Jason. Not even fucking close.” 

With Jason facing the opposite direction, Vaas grabbed him by his forearms and guided him closer to him. He was somewhat surprised the man came to him when asked. He was expecting another mental breakdown. Another flinch and attempted kick to the groin.

“---help me with this, hermano.” He started by holding the roll of gauze he had been saving for when Jason inevitably found him down here. He guided it under Jason’s arms, physically requested Jason to guide it over his chest and back to him on the other side. 

“---I thought I was supposed to let it air dry.” Jason mocked, doing as he was told. Inwardly he found it perplexing that Vaas had even remembered to grab some supplies before coming down here. _Had he been expecting him? Had he known he'd come looking for him?_

“Si. But you never listen to me, do you?” Vaas replied, guiding the gauze back and winding it back toward Jason. “I fucking knew you wouldn’t walk around this shithole shirtless. My princess is too shy for that.” 

While they played their little back and forth, Jason couldn’t help but feel slightly disturbed. When he thought about it, Vaas knew a lot more about him than he felt comfortable with. It was as if he was able to dissect Jason's very disposition with a few point observations. He knew his brother's name, his girlfriend's, and his closest friends. He even was starting to chisel away at Jason's Hercules complex, his need to fix everyone but himself. And what did Jason know about Vaas? He was once Rakyat. He takes a lot of drugs and he hates white wine. _Stellar, Jason. Way to know your enemy._

“--do you think it’s ever gonna heal? Like---heal correctly, I mean.” 

“You’ll never catch prince charming if that’s what you mean. But everything heals.” He mumbled this last bit, securing the gauze they had laid down with the pin that came with the kit. “---you’re lucky it wasn’t your fucking face.” 

Jason thought of the prominent scar that jutted across Vaas’s entire left profile. Was that what had happened there? He wanted to ask. God, he wanted to know and equal out this unfair advantage Vaas had over him through simple information. But how would Vaas react? They had been on a pretty good track record so far, no punch ups or unnecessary arguments. Given how the tide was changing, Jason decided it was best to keep it this way for as long as possible. Vaas’s hands were on his shoulders, pushing him forward so that he could move out from his place on the barstool. Jason had been nearly on his lap, situated between his legs. Jason did so but not before exalting an ah-hah! sound right before retrieving the necklace from his pocket. 

“---um--this is yours. Sorry---I forgot about it in the shower.” Stupidly he went to put over Vaas’s head. It was only fair, he had been manhandling Jason all night. But there he was stalling, stepping back. Something about initiating physicality with Vaas felt different. It was like touching him was this great privallage he had to be afforded before being granted access. What a horrific, self-deprecating thought. “---I uh---I guess it is kind of lucky. I mean---I didn’t die.” 

_Why are you rambling? Why are you tripping over your words like some shy little grade-schooler?_ Vaas held his hand out though, cocking his head to the side in a curious, _what are you_ stance. When Jason handed him the trinket, he seemed hardly disturbed by the fact that the leather cord had been wet by the shower. In fact, Jason thought he looked almost thoughtful, his eyes downturned in that curious study he did during these times of intrigue. Earlier he had sworn this look was Citra's, the dark-lidded gaunt that made them look so scarily similar. Now that Jason was before him like this, now that he had the chance to look at him up close and personal, he realized that the two of them were nothing alike at all. If Citra's eyes were glass blue, Vaas's were bottle green. His skin was a tanner shade of olive, kissed more often by the sun and humidity of the island heat. His eyes, which always looked perpetually sleep-deprived, lacked Citra's curious serpentine slit at the tear ducts. If he got off whatever he was on all the time, if he fucking slept once and awhile, he would even look handsome. He dashed this thought away as soon Vaas's eyes raised to meet his, concern laden in his brow. 

"---what?" Vaas spat, fingers toying with the jade pendant.

"Nothing. It's just---I guess I'm just surprised it actually worked. Uh---the good luck, I mean, I didn't die." 

“---that’s what I said, Jason. Jade is good luck.” He replied, slipping it back over his head and letting it fall to his chest. Jason noted that he looked better with it on, more complete. 

“--yeah.” Jason started, collecting the shirt that had been resting at their feet. “--um--thanks for--” 

“Don’t put that fucking shirt back on, dumbass. Go find a nicer one upstairs.” 

Jason rolled his eyes. “---okay, then give me the wine.” 

“You know what, amigo? You can have all the nasty ass white wine you can stomach. When you get back to base, I’ll tell the boys to let you drink yourself fucking silly. A going-away present from me to you, just to shut you the fuck up.” 

“---you’re not going with us?” 

Vaas stretched again, stood to his full height. “---no, no. I have a prior engagement. I got invited to a fucking funeral.” 

“---a funeral?” Jason tempted, fearing the worst. 

“Yes a fucking funeral, Jason. Don’t you remember? You stabbed Bambi.” 

It took Jason a moment to remember that Buck and Bambi Hughes were the same person. All the same, it was revolting to think about him, his vision partially lending itself to the image of Buck kneeling down a terrified Keith as he groped his groin. If there's a hell, Buck Hughes is there. Jason was glad he punched his ticket for him. 

“---they’re giving that sick fuck a funeral?” 

“ _Hoyt’s_ giving that sick fuck a funeral. They’ve been friends since the fucking stone age.” 

“---and you’re going _why_?” 

“To keep up fucking appearances. Business casual and all that shit.” Vaas replied, making his way toward the stairs. Jason followed him, bottle in hand. 

Jason tried to imagine Vaas in a suit or anything other than his usual tank top and cargo pants. It felt like blasphemy. “---when are you gonna be back?” 

“Excuse me? Since when are you my fucking secretary, huh? Do you keep my dates, my appointments, and my fucking meetings? Don’t worry when I’m gonna be back.”

But Jason did worry when Vaas was going to be back. Without Vaas, he had a two-hour car ride and a stay back at his compound with no supervision, no one to tell these men to back off the prized property. God only knew what had become of Daisy, Keith, and Oliver back at the compound. As they ascended the stairs, Jason saw that the new light of another day had already started to brighten the windows with a light blue tint. Beneath all this contemplation, as he watched Vaas violently slap Chewie awake, he realized how empty the compound would be without him. In a scary, keep on your toes sort of way, things were more interesting when Vaas was around. 


	8. Perdita puer.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perdita Puer - A Lost Child.

For the life of him, Vaas couldn't understand the dramatics of all this. Here they were, high tide on the beach below their cliffside, lined up like army generals as they wheeled Buck Hughes out in a driftwood coffin. Vaas noted, with a touch of amusement, that three out of the four men carrying Buck to his final resting place had all refused to work with him after one scouting mission. They were all privateers, of course. Decked out in their bumblebee themed riot gear and helmets. Rumor had it Snow White had done poor Bambi in a week or so prior, so the body had ample time to get all fixated and bloated in the island heat. Why then would one bother with a funeral? There was no body left to mourn, _not one worth looking at anyway_ , and no one in presence left to say any nice words about the deceased. David had gone with him for the select purpose of watching for Snow White in the radio tower above. He had said that _this was just what they did in the West._ They cried and screamed and had these big lavish funerals for people who weren't even aware they were the center of attention. 

What made it worse is he couldn't tell if the whole affair truly bothered him or not. None of them were angels. Given this line of work, it was impossible to ever hope to be one. Vaas lived his life knowing that when he died no one would be crying for his absence. You gain only partial allies in this profession, forever toeing the line of waiting until you were either replaced or stabbed in the back. _Your coworkers are all shit people so that makes you a shit person too. You learn to live with that._ But there was something inherently _different_ about Buck Hughes. Buck Hughes who only ever wanted to talk to you about sex or history. Buck Hughes who quite often reminisced on the sexual awakening of an abused little brother he had taken when he was green and sixteen. There were no jokes with Buck, no amiable sort of head nods or looks of recognition when they passed each other at a meeting point. The Privateers were uppidty, _sure_ , but they would at least have the common decency to fucking look at you when you spoke to them. Buck would carry on reading a history book or flipping through some obscene magazine. As if you weren't worth his time or the energy it took for him to move the muscles in his neck to fucking look at you. All and all, he looked at a life without Buck Hughes in it and could detect no discernable change. 

“--a noble worker and fantastic friend--” 

Vaas brought the long sleeves of his raincoat to stop himself from laughing at that. None of the pirates had anything close to formal attire so they all came in these ridiculous black slickers they had intercepted from a cruise ship that was headed toward some waterfalls. Here they all were, foreboding individual reaper men with their heads bowed down because their hangovers couldn’t take the morning sunlight. Vaas wondered if Hoyt understood the irony. Having a bunch of grim reapers at his best friend’s celebration of life. If this was really meant to be a tribute to Bambi Hughes, they’d all be in some freaky no hold bars orgy. 

“---now we will take some words for the deceased.” Hoyt’s eyes, which were still comically wet, searched around the gaggle of men. “---well?! Am I fucking talking to myself?!” 

“---uh--uh--uh.” The Captain of the Northern Privateers spoke up. “---he really knew how to use a sniper rifle. Yeah, he was a one of a kind marksman.” The crowd crooned and agreed but Hoyt seemed dissatisfied. 

“---what about you, Vaas? Say something about your fallen accomplice.” 

Despite the fact that they all looked the same in their rain slickers, everyone seemed to single Vaas out perfectly from the crowd. They all looked at him, as they always did, with a nervous sort of expectation. _Fucking fantastic._

“---he knew a lot about ancient Rome.” Vaas started. “---gladiators and shit.” 

The crowd nodded and agreed, some of them saying shit like _‘that he did’_ and ‘ _that’s right._ ’ Hoyt seemed more pleased with this answer. 

“ _\---ah, yes_ , our Bambi loved his history. Why, I remember once when we were surveying some product in Kyrat--” 

Vaas wondered if Hoyt knew how often Buck talked about how easy it would be to overthrow him. He would say how all Vaas needed to do was rally his troops, grease the palms of a few captains, and charge in to slit his throat. He wondered if Hoyt understood that a man of his stature had to forsake things like friends and luxury for power and control. He wondered if Buck had lived, how long it would have taken Hoyt to wise up to the fact that the Australian had kept tabs of his every move. Every contact, every short business transaction overseas, Buck had some shallow form of interception. There was a reason the King of the previously mentioned Kyrat chose to speak only to Vaas when trading for personal slaves to his country. Even with the necessity to keep his sexual preference a secret and known to few people, he felt Buck was too involved in the handling of money. Even dictators, high and lost in their ivory towers, know a dupe when they fucking see one. 

‘ _Fucking finally._ ’ Pagan Min had said upon hearing the news. _‘Do thank the chap who finally did him in when you find him. He’s done our world a service_.’ 

“---and now, a moment of silence.” 

The congressional all bowed their heads and crossed their arms. In some shallow form of revolt, Vaas didn't join them. He instead kept his eyes trained on Mr. Volker, who was sitting atop the coffin with his palms over his nose in a mockery of prayer.

_Does God give a fuck about men like us? Can we even pray?_

Suddenly his thoughts were stormed with a terrible rage. This wasn't exactly something new to him. He would often change his mood several times within the hour, but this feeling was something deeper than a simple switch of fancy. _He hated Hoyt Volker._ He hated how small and feeble he was, how spindly and long his limbs were. He hated that thin, inconsequential chest that homed a heart full of pride. The father before Hoyt had made his life's work mining blood diamonds in their home country. He was a bastard and tyrant sure, _but everyone's father is._ Hoyt allegedly inherited this line of work from that same man. From his stories, he had waited until the old fuck was good and drunk on his wine, then slit his throat in his bed. A peculiar memory floated to him of one such occasion between himself, Hoyt and dearly departed Bambi. One of the many times Hoyt had spread his own origin story out to them like a candy whore on her back. 

_"---yes. You were like Brutus, boss?" Buck had grinned, refilling Hoyt's martini._

_" What the fuck are you talking about now?" Hoyt shot back._

_"Marcus Junius Brutus. You know, the great fuckin' assassination of Julius Cesar?" When Hoyt hadn't responded, Buck pressed further. "---oh Jesus Christ._ **_Brutus_ ** _. Second in command to the dictator. The childhood friend who stabs the poor fuck until he's cowering on the senate floor? You're a regular Marcus Junius Brutus, that's what I'm sayin---"_

**_Brutus. Brutus. Brutus._ **

The percussion began to sway, men lifting their heads from their tired and feigned stupor of prayer. Hoyt was the last to join them, the last to wipe his nose on the back sleeve of his best suit and idle his hand over the driftwood coffin.

_He's so fucking weak. He's so fucking powerless. I can take him. I can take him. Instead of you, it should be me. Instead of you, it should be me._

When Hoyt raised his head to look at his second in command, _his Brutus_ , he might have been expecting warmth. Maybe he wanted a form of recognition, that human connection that said _I understand and feel this awful sting too._ Whatever he was looking for, he found that Vaas was partially veiled in that stupid fucking raincoat he brought. He saw his lips though, the very start of the tip of his nose.

He was smiling at him. 

**-X-**

Buck Hughes had made his unholy accession into the North Pacific Ocean five minutes before noon. By then the party in question had already grown tired of pretending to mourn. Even the Privateers, who were supposed to be the exemplars of dignity and grace, began to parlay on each foot and look at their watches. They knew they at least had some form of reward waiting for them at their compound. Hoyt would bathe them in champagne and roasted pork. Pork that the pirates had caught and delivered to them, but that's beside the point. Twas the pecking order of nature, one assumed. _Might makes right and all that_. After throwing down a spare lily toward Bambi's watery grave, they were inevitably excused and allowed to attend their posts. 

"--- _man._ " Chewie whispered. "---that was fucking _gay_." 

Vaas slapped him hard on the back of the head, laughing through clenched lips as he guided the man's shoulders toward their van. 

"---excuse me, Mr. Montenegro. I'd like a word." 

_Great_. He was getting last-named, that was always a good sign. Vaas let go of Chewie, shut the passenger door for him afterward. Casually he glanced over his shoulder, saw Hoyt standing there arms crossed and practically eclipsed by his hired bodyguards. 

"Aloha." Vaas chimed, in partial spite because many of these privateer fucks often _asked if this place was like Hawaii._ He approached Hoyt the same way he'd approach a caged tiger. Carefully, purposely, hands clenched to either side. 

"---someone is very chipper today." Hoyt started, leaving the circle jerk of his armory just far enough to parry Vaas's proximity. "It's not like you're at a fucking funeral." 

Vaas gave Hoyt one of his casual shrugs, the few he had left for him. "--grief has many faces, boss. Humor is how I cope." 

"I see." Hoyt started. Three pirate owned jeeps, the only ones that were permitted to come to this event, were already hightailing it out and back to their side of the island. Vaas wished he had had the foresight to ride with them. "---and tell me, Vaas. Does it humor you that the crazy American fuck who did this is still at large? Pray tell, where is our good friend Mr. Brody?" 

Vaas tilted his head, looked as if he hadn't thought about Jason Brody once since he had escaped. "---I mentioned my sister inking the white boy, no?" 

Hoyt threw his fists down by his sides. Vaas noted that he looked like a tantruming toddler. "---yes, but how did he get there in the first place? How is it that under your watch, the most dangerous psychopath this side of the island managed to find his way to the most heavily armed monkey-people this world has ever known?" 

Vaas wanted to correct Hoyt, remind him that _he_ was one of these supposed monkey-people but found it unwise. Best change the subject. 

"--a setback, Hoyt." Vaas replied, hands going to his back and into fists so hard the palms began to bleed. "---we have more men watching the hostages now. They take shifts now to--" 

Gone was that thought now, it was shooed away when the back of Hoyt Volker's hand went cruelly across his face. His face stayed in that direction, less he looked at this man in the eyes and lost all control of himself.

_Oh, what would you do if every motherfucker here wasn't armed? What would you do if your little fucking handlers weren't here? I bet I could crack your spine, I bet I could take every tooth out of your fucking skull and--_

"---and the compounds. You take back one he takes fucking three--" 

Hoyt was on another one of his tangents again, his voice doing the fucking effeminate shake it does right when he's hit a high point. 

_He's so old and fucking useless he can't handle his own anger._ _Pedazo de mierda. Vieja maldita bruja._

"I want him alive. Do you understand me? I want him in my custody, in my personal chambers and halfway to the great fucking beyond. I want to see the life go from his eyes." He grabbed the front of Vaas's raincoat, brought the two of them closer so Vaas could smell the last martini he drank. 

"---do I make myself fucking clear?" 

Vass finally chanced a look at him. Smiled. " _\---crystal fucking clear_ , boss." 

Hoyt grimaced, hating the fact that Vaas was still managing a smile after all this mess. He threw him back, meaning to parry him onto the van but his second in command had caught himself on his feet. 

"--and another thing, Vaas." He started, fingers reaching into the hem of his pocket for a cigarette. "---don't let me catch you paying sympathies for that whore of a sister of yours." He lit the cigarette by sliding a match across a privateer's helmet. This same general stepped it into the dirt when Hoyt tossed it. "---she's on her way to hell too." 

**-X-**

Jason's morning had mostly been uneventful. He had been expecting some kind of revolt from the men who had come to pick him and the twins up at the party house. As they drove he kept expecting them to turn into a shaded area or veer off the road completely. What made this worse was that Jason had no fucking idea where they were going. This portion of the island hadn't really been his purgative save for the outpost that guarded the center border. 

_Well, that doesn't mean shit now. Pirates have it again. I helped them do it._

But regardless of his poor trackmanship, the ride was almost boring. The twins were back at their breakneck speed, talking amongst themselves in Italian and then English when they felt Jason was paying them some attention. They seemed boyishly enamored with him now, telling the other two pirates about how talented the gringo was with a knife. Jason thought they sounded an awful lot like schoolboys recanting the story of some superhero in a comic, their eyes lighting up with that same juvenile sense of wonder as they spoke. When Jason could get a word in, he intervened. 

"---hey, so the funeral? Why does Vaas have to go?" 

The twins fell silent, Paolo was the first to open his mouth but closed it when a heavy, clear Jamaican voice stepped over his. 

"---what is it to you, huh? Where the boss goes is his fucking business." 

Jason ignored him, talked only to Paolo. 

"---when is he gonna be back?" 

"Hey!" The driver intervened, Jason thought he sounded eerily like the cinnamon character who ran from the ugly apple in those old 90s cereal commercials. 

_Here I come, I am cinnamon!_

"Mind your fucking business, white boy! Asking questions and shit---"

"Pretty sure you're being paid to be a taxi driver right now. Don't put in overtime, _you_ mind _your_ business." Jason replied. 

The dude was angry now, cursing and shit. Interestingly enough he failed to face Jason, or look at him through the rearview mirror. 

_Cute. Maybe I've killed a brother of yours._

Jason rested his chin in his hand, looked at Fransico who seemed distressed with all the yelling. Paolo, on the other hand, appeared to have lukewarm concern. His eyes fell on Jason, a smile of unmistakable adoration spreading over his lips. The Jamaican, who clearly wasn't getting his desired reaction from Jason or backup from his peers, turned up the radio and said something along the lines of _how lucky Jason was that the boss wanted him for himself._

**-X-**

To his surprise, the compound was still there. Jason couldn't describe the sensation in words but he was starting to get the impression that landmarks and people tended to dissipate the moment he wasn't paying them enough attention. _Like home, like Riley._ He thought how this made it all the more worse that he didn't know where Vaas was at this point in time. He hadn't the motivation to dig into it further, but he felt this uncertainty was a premonition of something bad. From what he could see, Vaas's little corner of hell was as idle and quiet as it could ever be. A topless prostitute ran past their jeep, grinning and laughing on a new high. A pirate followed after her, joyously hooting and chuckling. _Like Apollo and Daphne_. Jason subconsciously found himself wishing he could be like that again. Stupid, careless, and free. Even with all that was going on, the mess he and everyone he knew was in, the world still allowed fleeting motions of glee. 

_Must be nice._

This line of thought was interrupted when Jason realized the ominous figure standing at the front of the compound's guarded fortress was none other than Carlos. There he was, straight-backed in an oil-stained peasant shirt and sandals. Not unpleasantly, Jason was reminded of all the times his father had stood in just a fashion as he waited for his son to get out of school. When it was Dad picking him up, he always knew he had a half-eaten mar's bar and a new deck of trading cards waiting for him in the glove compartment. These same childish impulses came galavanting back on a track star's legs. It was tainted then by the intrusion of memory. He thought of Oliver's knarled and abused hands. The damage was superficial, _sure_ , but it had been long and tenuous and absolute.

"--- _ah._ The prodigal son returns." Carlos grinned at him, pulling him into a wide arm hug that ended with a pat on Jason's back. Miraculously, the motion didn't hurt. "--tell me. How did it feel to take back that compound?" 

"--- _uh_." If Carlos felt Jason stiffen in his arms, he didn't act like it. They separated awkwardly and with Jason making the initial pullback. "---I mean, it still got blown up--" 

"I did boomie-boomie!" Fransico roared, throwing an arm around Jason's neck. The physical affection felt more granted, more appropriate. Jason allowed it. "---you must listen to this man's story, mio uomo Jason is as quick as a viper striking! He was very--" 

"Yes, Fransico." Carlos interrupted, darting his attention toward the shorter man. "---there are new drug shipments that need packaging, might I add." 

Jason didn't need to look at Fransico to tell that his face had fallen. His body had become heavier against Jason's, an action that was alleviated when Paolo came around and grabbed his brother by the bicep. 

"---we understand, capo." Paolo said, guiding Fransico away and under his arm. He chanced a look back at Jason, one that said _I'll see you later_ and Snow White nodded in return. He half-wished to go with them. Carlos watched them go, a look of clear disdain permeating his features. It was only when they were out of clear ear-shot that he continued. 

"---your gringa friend, the blonde one, she has been asking many questions of you." 

"Daisy?" Jason started, pressing closer. "---is she alright?" 

Carlos waved a dismissive hand. "---she's fine, yes. Dehydration is curable. But we had a very interesting conversation--" 

"---about what?" Jason didn't like the fact that he was being talked about. Usually, the topic of conversation revolved around how scary big man Brody was acting. _These American fucks don't know it, but voices echo in a fucking cave._ Carlos didn't look too thrilled that he had interrupted. Instead of answering him, he took him by his tattooed arm.

"---come. This way." 

**-X-**

By Carlos's account, Daisy had been working as his second in command in the infirmary from the moment she could put pressure on her feet. She was more than happy to be out of her cage and took to the work as if it were ice to a burn. In Carlos's words, the three Americans were not hostages as much as they were pending transactions. With nowhere to go and no definite place to send them, their placement in their cages were depriving the Pirates of needed space for coming shipments. So instead, they were placed to work. Keith, clearly not being able to stomach working with anyone without a handler, had been shifting out the ash and debris from the fire pit. The morning would start with two men who guided him to the spot, breaking him for lunch and then back to work until evening. Carlos said he didn't know what it was Oliver did here but he knew he still breathed because several pirates wouldn't shut up about his card tricks. Why Vaas felt it imperative to tell everyone about it, he wasn't sure. 

The infirmary was shockingly professional. Cots of four flanked each side and comatose bodies were occupying three. There was the faintest smell of antiseptic parrying the natural musk of jungle and open air. When Jason stepped in he had to remind himself that this was still on a remote, savage island. 

"---Jason!" Daisy's arms around him were sudden and unexpected. He was surprised how naturally he had thought of snapping her neck but realized just in time who it was that startled him. She was thinner now, horribly so and Jason could feel her shoulder blades poking into his palms when he held her against him. 

"---hey, Day." He started, swaying a bit in their embrace. "---what's up?" 

Daisy separated herself from him long enough to look into his eyes, as if testing if he was real. When she appeared satisfied, she embraced him once more and then held both his hands. "---I'm--I'm okay." 

Jason knew that was a lie because her eyes were already brimming with tears. He hated how he had no idea how to approach that though. He almost wished she would stop it and tell him to go shoot or reclaim something. _That, at least, was easier._

"--I'm sorry, Daisy." He replied and when she went in for another hug, he pretended not to mind it. _Normal people hug in times of distress. Normal people accept it and don't wonder when it's gonna end._

"---how are you holding up, Jason? I heard you were with _that guy--_ "

He didn't need to press further to reason who _that guy_ was. He released himself from her, allowed her to hold his hands in hers before they separated. Jason sat on a cot, looked unsympathetically at some poor asshole with his left leg elevated on a tied bedsheet. _Blissfully high and comatose. Lucky fucker._

"---yeah. Vaas is _something._ " 

"---did he hurt you?" 

"---uh. No?" Jason stammered, remembering that little event in the van and how it unceremoniously led to their talk in the wine cellar. "---well, a little bit but I kinda had that one coming." 

Daisy skewed her face, looked concerned but seemed to feel the subject was too complicated to press further. She decided to double down on something of commonality, something they both could understand. "---the others are okay. Keith is--" 

"--shoveling shit, I know." Jason replied, wondered where Carlos got to. When he looked, he found him squatting next to another patient who clearly wouldn't live through the night. Not with that head injury. "---imagine what his dad would say, huh? He's got a manual labor job." 

Jason meant that to be funny, he even chuckled and gave a sly grin. It fell when he realized Daisy didn't bite. She offered him a sheepish smile, which was worse than her saying nothing and continued. "---yes. From what I can tell, Oliver is something of a performer. They like his card tricks." 

A moment passed filled with an awkward silence. Carlos cleared his throat, left to wash out a soiled bedpan. Daisy held herself, rocking back and forth as if teetering on the edge of a cliff and considering the jump. Clearly, Carlos’s leaving had brought her some benign form of confidence. Her shoulders untensed, her fingers relaxing from their grip around her arms. 

"--Jason." She started, voice shaking a tad at the ending consonance of _n_. She held her hands in front of herself now, lacing her fingers together so that her shoulders bowed outward as if she was giving CPR. _She’s so twitchy, so nervous._ Immediately Jason began to feel tense, almost as if staying here was akin to keeping his hand clasped over a hot skillet. "---did you---when you looked for Liza at the temple--" 

"---I don't know where Liza is, Daisy." He interrupted, attempting to vanquish the conversation before the smoke caught to a fire. "--I'm working on getting even with the fucks who took her--" 

"---Jason--" 

"I am, Daisy. They're gonna pay for--" 

“---I don’t care about that right now--” 

“ I promise I’m gonna make them--” 

“Is she dead?” 

The question in itself rang out of her throat like the chime of a table knife hitting a glass. It ran through his head with the same high frequency, the same maddening ping that held no reprieve. 

_What do I even say to that? Why would you ask me?_

"---I--I don't know. _I really don't know_." 

Daisy looked like she didn't believe him and that made Jason want to cave her face in. She must have sensed his building anger because she looked down and away from him. 

"---do you--" Jason started. "--do you think I did something to her?" 

Daisy's eyes alit, hands going in front of her. "---no. Oh no, Jason. That's not it at all---it's just---you were the last one that could have seen her--" 

"---and everyone thinks I'm going crazy anyway." He started, standing from his cot. Daisy backed up, looked wildly for Carlos who was still shaking piss out of the bedpan outside. _No one to save her. Why does she look so scared?_ "--which brings up a very good point, why was she left alone to go see a fucking herbalist?" 

"---how did you--" 

"Oliver clued me in. Said you were the last one to talk to her. You guys were holed up in the boat. What did you talk about?" 

Daisy stood tall, fists clenching. Suddenly she was herself again, the swimmer with all the gold medals. "---that's got nothing to do with--" 

"Well, I think it has everything to do with me. Considering it was the last known conversation she had. Now she's missing and you want to point fingers--" 

“Stop it, Jason. Really. Just stop.” 

“ No! Just tell me what happened!” 

Daisy slapped him across the face. He hadn't even realized he was close to her. It was as if his body had gone on autopilot, gravitating itself to a point of conflict as if it were seeking heat. Daisy's eyes were misted and wild but they were ominously alert. Her eyebrows were raised, a single finger pointing toward Jason as she began to pivot step away from him and toward a walk-in closet that held supplies. It was the look his mother gave when she'd catch little Riley dipping in the cookie jar. _A mother knows best kind of look._ It drove him batty. He held his wounded cheek, swiveled a hand around his jaw, and allowed her to make more distance. 

"---stop it. Jason, I'm serious---" 

" I'm serious too, Daisy. You think I don't hear you guys in the fucking cave? _Talking about how crazy Jason's been acting. How we need to get him help when we get back to the states._ Now that Liza's gone, you probably convinced them I fucking did it--" 

" I did not!" Daisy shouted, her opened jaw forcing the tears to spill over her cheeks. "---do you think I'd waste my time gossiping about you? Talking about your fucking mental state?" She was farther away now, almost to the door. "---I'm not doing this with you." 

"Then why ask me about Liza? Why bring it up?" 

Daisy tangled her hands through her hair, pulling several strands from her ponytail. "Because she's GONE, Jason! She fucking disappeared and no one has a steady answer to what happened! And you--" She pointed a finger again at him. "---the first thing you do is act defensive when I bring her up. What else am I to think?!"

Jason’s turn to run his hands through his hair, fingers pulling at the strands. “---I didn’t fucking kill my own girlfriend, Daisy!” 

Daisy gave him a knowing look, crossed her arms back over her chest and sauntered over to the supply closet. She brought out a large bottle of antiseptic for the guy with the bum leg. She wouldn’t look at him.

“--what?” Jason pried, following her all the way to the patient’s bedside. “--what did I say?”

“---nothing, Jason.” Cold and distant. She removed the man’s bandages, revealed a puzzle pattern of stitching where Carlos had previously removed a bullet. Jason was standing behind her as she kneeled. 

“---well it’s obviously something. Spit it out.” 

“---you didn’t act like it.” Daisy mumbled. It was so low Jason could barely understand it. 

“---excuse me? You can speak up, you know?” 

“---I said you didn’t act like it.” 

“--I’m sorry?” 

Daisy dabbed a cotton ball in the antiseptic, it came back a useless mess. She then folded up twice with three more. “---you didn’t act like her boyfriend, Jason. And it didn’t start just with that woman--” 

“---woman?” 

“---the warrior woman. You talked a lot about her, spent a lot of time with her. Jason, she wasn’t stupid. She knew--” 

Jason grabbed Daisy by the forearm, an action that made her scream out in shock. Carlos, amazingly, wasn't coming back in to check on them. "Is that what you were talking about that night? Were you talking about Citra?" 

“ Get off me!” Daisy bellowed, throwing the bottle of antiseptic so that it splashed up and over Jason’s chest. He was lucky he turned his face in time, it could have gone straight in his eyes. He obeyed her command though, hands raising. 

“---Daisy.” 

“---don’t!” She started, hands idling over the spare crutch that was saved for the new patient’s untimely awakening. What she could do with such a long cumbersome thing could only be guessed but it was clear she’d hit him with it if he came close. “---just stop it!” 

“---Daisy.” Jason shook, hands still raised in front of him as if her eyes were daggers pointed straight at him. “---it’s me. Why would I---I would never--” 

“--we didn’t know that, Jason. We started seeing you less and less. When you did come around you were always on something, always bragging about something or someone you killed. You even stopped mentioning Riley.” 

Jason’s eyes immediately began to somber, his hands lowering as she slowly abandoned the crutch and returned to her work. He didn’t even remember visiting them on such occasions, didn’t even remember mentioning killing or maiming. Is this how they all saw him now? Some drugged up psychopath with a hard-on for blood? 

“---is that why she was asking for the herbalist?” Jason asked. “--she wanted to help me?” 

Daisy shook her head, started to unwind bandages at the calf. 

“---then what?” 

“---because I was pregnant.” 

Jason idled, looked and felt shocked. “---what?” 

“Grant and I weren’t exactly careful. I was late, didn’t think anything of it until time started pressing on in that cave. Told Liza about it, she---she--” Daisy wiped her eyes, sniffed. “---she told me everything was going to be alright and we’d make it back home and--” 

Jason went to touch her again but she bore more daggers into him, continued her work. “---Dr. Earnheart was sweet but he was rarely somber. The townspeople were so friendly--she thought---she thought that--” 

Jason didn’t dare her to continue. “---are you---are you--” 

“---no. After she was gone it was too much and--” 

“---Daisy, I--” 

“---I just---I want to know what happened to her, Jason. I want to know why she---why they would want to hurt her.” 

“---I don’t know, Daisy.” Jason offered, looking to the door where Carlos had last left. _Oh, how he wished to see him again now. Anything but this._ “--they tortured me for it. My back--” 

Daisy dried her eyes and nose. “--I know. I saw it when we were in those cages. It was horrible--”

Jason wanted to quickly change the subject. God, did he want to get away from the memory that was storming into the forefront of his mind like a charging rhino. Daisy interrupted this. 

“--Jason, I sent her to it. Whatever it was that happened to her, she went there because of me--” 

“---Daisy, no. She---she would have done anything for you. It was--” He stopped, swallowed thickly. “---it was me who wanted to come here in the first place.” 

What made everything worse, what made Jason feel as small and non-consequential as ever, Daisy didn’t disagree with him. She sat there, eyes red and puffy, a total heap of misery, but she didn’t move to relieve him of his own. 

_This is all my fault. All of this. Everything. And they know it. They all blame me for this. What do I do?_

“--Daisy, I’m gonna get us back home--” 

“No.” 

“--what?” 

“---I’m not leaving this island until I know what happened to my best friend.” She began to patch the pirate’s leg up, joining the bandages together. “---I at least owe her that much.” 

Jason was in partial awe of how brave Daisy was. After all this, all she had lost, she was still holding some modicum of honor. She still had a sense of loyalty. He thought of the conversation he had with Vaas as they burnt Rangi alive. 

_“I don’t think I have people. “_

_“Join the fucking club.”_

_What’s happened to me?_

“--how are we gonna do that though?” Jason started, standing. “--get answers, I mean.” 

Daisy seemed unusually cold now, as if whatever had just rampaged through her system had run its course and she was on autopilot again. “---Carlos mentioned Vaas was once Rakyat. You say you’re at the point where he’s not hurting you. Why not start with him?”


	9. Bonam Fortunam.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonam Fortunam - Good Luck! Good Fortune, etc.

_ It should have been Grant.  _

_ It should have been Grant.  _

This thought was a mantra in his head. When he and Paolo went hunting the next day, when he and Keith sat on those dirt floors and ate the meat he had caught and killed that morning, all Jason could think about was what could have happened if it had been him who had died in the mud that night. Where would Daisy be if Vaas had just rotated the wrist holding the gun a mere thirty degrees? Where would Oliver be if it was Grant who was bestowed the tattau? And most importantly, where would Riley be? 

Three days had passed since Daisy's talk with Jason in the infirmary. Three days of never visiting the subject again. Three days of avoiding eye contact with her and not speaking with Keith. It was like they all operated on autopilot, bees mousing upon a hive they had no business buzzing in. Oliver seemed to be the only one of them thriving, he ate his meals with his new friends who called him a fucking magician. It made it all the worse that there was no escaping anything now. At least before he had the option to blow off steam in the jungles and pitfalls. Now he was secluded to one place, one local area.

_ How did the others manage in that fucking cave for so long? _

Lord help Jason if he was caught unsupervised off the compound. And the Pirates had rubbed salt in bleeding wounds by cramming the three of them all in a one-room hut with nothing but a few placemats for beds. It was if the pirates just knew the proud Americans had run out of options. They could brave the jungle,  _ sure. _ But with what guns to defend themselves? Those were kept far from their reach. And what allies would they have there in the trees and the bush? Certainly not the natives. 

So for the last 72 hours, Jason was left with nothing but his thoughts. Thoughts that inevitably led back to Grant. Grant and his straight A's. Grant and his boy scout sash covered in badges. Grant and his acceptance letter into the Marines. Grant and his mother shoeless on a beach. She tells him how proud she is of her son and he says how he couldn't have done it all without her. All the while she's thinking in the back of her head how she wishes that  _ that other one  _ would be more like 

Grant. Grant. Grant. Grant. Grant. 

Keith mentioned something about how Jason wasn't eating so in response, he started shoveling the undercooked rice and meat into his maw without really savoring the dull flavors. When he was finished, he excused himself outside for a walk where he could gander at the snipers who were being paid just to jerk off in their little outposts and watch for an attempted escape. There was no getting away from it all. No getting away from the itching, creeping feeling that Grant was up there in his heaven looking down at his brother and shaking his mighty head. 

_ It's easy to blame Grant for all this. Grant can no longer defend himself. _

God, how they used to argue. Grant called him a good for nothing slacker and Jason would call him a goodie-two-shoes soldier boy and the fists would start flying. Grant should have known better than to crouch down in the open air like that. He should have taken charge, should have dodged the fucking bullet. How many times had he told him about the moment their father had laid a newborn baby in his arms? How many times did he remind him, every time he fucked up, that their father specifically told Grant that his baby brother was  _ his _ responsibility? 

_ This isn't Grant's fault. This isn't my fault. It's Vaas. It's always fucking Vaas.  _

But no, that wasn't quite right either. The night before they were to fly out of Bangkok, his mother had phoned him and told him all about the parasites that live on in these third world countries. She had read some article, called her twenty-five-year-old son internationally, and told him to cancel his trip over potential ringworm. And Grant had said how the trip was dragging on anyway, that he wanted some of his mother’s fucking pot pie before being deployed again and Jason ought to--

“--- _ AYE! AYE!  _ OUT OF BOUNDS, YOU CHICKEN FUCK!” 

The sniper shot at the ground at his feet, Jason instinctively jumped back. From the encompassing low light of a dulling sunset, he could just barely make out two figures perched on high beamed sniper towers.  _ Oh, if he had a fucking rifle. _

“----WHERE THE FUCK IS VAAS?” He called back to them and could hear distinct laughing. 

“---oh no, oh no. I can’t hear you,  _ novia! _ You have to speak louder!” 

Jason was on his way over there when he felt someone’s hands over his arm and pulling back. Daisy. He could tell by the softer skin and shaking disposition.

“---Jason, please--” 

“---those fucks started it!” 

“---just come inside---” 

“You were the one who wanted to see Vaas!” 

“---please just come inside, please--” 

He hated that sound in her voice. That weak, subservient pleading noise. Liza made it every time he declined to go home from a party. She did before every skydiving jump, started it again on every rock climbing venture. Looking at Daisy now was eerily like looking at Liza but ten times more haggard. Her hair was down, her eyes eclipsed by deep-seated circles that ringed around like a raccoon’s. 

_ Please, can’t it just be the two of us? Jason, I just want to be with you. Let’s go home. _

And each time Liza begged to go home, each time she stood awkwardly outside the club while he danced inside, he began to fucking hate her. She made it no secret that she had her eyes set on Grant when they first met. _ But Grant liked blondes, Grant liked girls who worked out. _ So she settled for the fixer-upper middle child, thinking she would eventually tame him into a husband type. Then they’d both get fat and old. She’d pop out four kids. _ And then what? _

“---Jason. Just come on.” 

Daisy led him into their sorry hut. Keith, who had already adjusted to his sad little life of work, sleep and eat, was already lying on his cot with his back to them. This was lightyears better than the living hell he had come from with Bambi. At least here he had three square meals, a bed, and familiar company. Jason forgot to feel sympathy for him though, he was much too angry to shed pity. When Daisy laid him down on that cot and told him to sleep, it was the last thing his mind would let him do. But the mental channel had been changed from Grant. Now he was thinking of Vaas. He thought of the day they had burnt that warrior to a crisp. He thought of Vaas, standing in front of him as he gave him that lucky pendant. He thought of Vaas and his stupid fucking wahine in the front seat. Thought of Vaas choking him. Thought of Vaas straddling him in the van, looming over him face to face. 

This image, finally, lured him into sleep. 

  
  


**-X-**

He couldn't tell what time it was. Only that the crickets and nocturnal birds had punched their time cards in. It was that time of night where everything was silent, the only discernible sound that of the ocean lapping its lips over the shores. How quaint it was that he hadn't detected the ominous shape that was now looming over him, gently shaking him. Jason shot up. 

"---mio amico. It's alright. It's only me." Paolo's voice said, hands coming to rest on his shoulders. 

"--how the--how the fuck?"

A chuckle. " You forget I was a master thief in my past life, friend. But _ di tutto questo, _ I have good news for you." 

Jason looked around them, and noticed that neither Daisy nor Keith were stirring from sleep. How they would have survived out in the jungle would have been a sight to see. 

"---what?" 

"The boss is back, Vaas is on the compound. " 

Jason blinked, his eyes adjusting so that he could just barely make out the wide toothy grin on the smaller man's face. 

"-- _ uh _ \--" 

"You have been asking about him, friend. Come, I have much to show you--" 

"--what?" 

"---what did I say?" Paolo sounded clearly confused, adjusted himself in his half squat. “---I have something to show you, the boss is here, you asked for him. What else must I explain?” 

"---nothing, Paolo. Jeez-- _ -I'm still half fucking asleep- _ \--when did he get back?" 

"---I am not sure of this. I believe Carlos said they took back two outposts." 

"--what the fuck?  _ Two? _ " 

"Yes, the boss must have been very inspired. Come though, _ come _ , we haven't much time. I have lots to show you--” 

Jason chanced a look over his shoulder, saw Daisy roll over and onto her side through the pale strips of moonlight that made it through the window. 

"---you said Vaas is here?"

**-X-**

Everything hurt. His muscles, the bones beneath them, the skin caked in filth, it was all pain. It was an ache that rolled itself into his being like a mighty monsoon, pulling at his nerve endings like a new wave. Even his eyes, which were now five days without sleep, were beginning to feel the strain of ill rest. But he had been raised to believe that pain was the price of living. You are born inflicting pain upon your mother. You live inflicting pain upon other men and then you die inflicting pain upon yourself. Every moment in between these events are imbued with pain’s lesser sisters. There is always an itch that needs scratching, a hunger you haven’t the immediacy to abate. You suffer a heartache, a bad fall, a sour taste from underripe fruit. The entirety of mortal existence is discomfort, one pain to the next. At least, this is the natural order of things, the way it should be. None of that mattered now. The world was on its head. 

_ Spinning. Spinning. Spinning.  _

"---and I found a fucking rat, a fucking cocksucking rat---" 

He didn't even know what he was saying anymore. All he did know was that he was pacing. He was outside himself, somewhere on Venus perhaps.  _ Brutus in primary fresco, central Rome before the Liberators.  _ His men were watching him. They gathered before his feet as he stood upon a cage that barely allowed the occupant the space to kneel. Fransico’s dark brown eyes, the very same as Paolo’s, widened as he looked this way and that between the bars. Men began prodding him with iron rods, spears ripped apart from shot down ships. The ashes from the last fire had mercifully been swept out but god, you could still smell the ash. The decay of ruined wood, singed human hair and skin.  _ They all loved it. They all loved their leader.  _

Fransico, who was having trouble seeing through a new black eye, wadded his way over toward Vaas, shrinking his shoulders inwards as to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible.

"---papi. Vaas. Mio amico. Mio copo, mio signore.  _ Per favore abbi pietà. Per favore. _ " 

Fransico was blubbering now, branching off into hysterics as he inevitably reverted to his mother language, his infantile state. Tears cascaded down his face, streaking his soot-covered image with the remnants of his natural skin color as he began to paw at the ankles of Vaas's boots. If he had the access, he would be kissing the tops of the laces, begging. Instead, he licked at the bottom soles, an action that Vaas found more revolting than appeasing. 

“SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Vaas was down and beside the cage now, face explicitly between the bars so that the smaller man had no choice but to lurch back and straight into a few prodding spears on the other side. Francisco was inconsolable now, a large snot bubble forming and bursting over his lips so that the remnants fell past his chin in ropes. 

" Stop fucking crying,  _ pequeña mierda! _ Were you crying yesterday, _ huh _ ? You fuck! Were you crying when you were kissing Volker's fucking ass, man-handling his nutsack? Aye! _ Siento culo _ ! You look me in the fucking eye!" 

Fransico did as Vaas asked but he sure as fuck didn't stop crying. He whimpered now, crumpled himself into a quivering sorry heap. To relieve this, Vaas wrapped a hand around Fransico's long hair and pulled, forced his eyesight upwards. Inevitably he was compelled to look at his former allies, all of which were bantering and screaming for his demise. 

"---tell them what you fucking did." Vaas mused. 

"---I---I--I--" 

" I SAID TELL THEM WHAT THE FUCK YOU DID!  _ Business, amigo _ . Tell them your fucking job description--" 

"---I was--I was---I work for the privateers---I---" 

Immediately the crowd started booing, Chewie in particular threw a half-full bottle of beer that exploded just below the cage. He screamed something incomprehensible, something loud. 

"---brothers--- _ please _ \---you must understand I had no choice---" 

"No, no, no, _ please.  _ We did not ask for excuses. We asked for answers, amigo. C'mon. Tell them what you were going to do--" 

Fransico sobbed for a moment, shirked away from a spear that went painfully into the side of his shoulder. Vaas jerked his head upwards by the hair, an action that made his eyes slant and squint from the pressure. "--I was---I was gathering intel--Hoyt sent me to watch this faction and---I-" 

The entire crowd screamed in dismay, began to surge forward but was stopped by Vaas's raised hand. "---and why, perrito? Why were you doing that?" 

"---I wanted---I wanted the money--” Comically the crowd gasped at this, almost as if Volker hadn’t lured them into this hellhole with the same fucking trap. 

“--what the fuck!?” A Jamaican voice, the same one that Fransico had heard this morning as he was driven through the entry port. “---how much?” 

  
  


“Twenty thousand.” Another voice, clearly Ugandan. “---that’s what the fuckin’ yellow jackets make, I’m sure.” 

**“** Twenty thousand _ American _ ?” David asked. “----cause I tell you what, all that’s showing up in my fucking account is pesos--” 

“YOU HAVE A FUCKING BANK ACCOUNT?!” 

When violence started to erupt, Vaas wasn't quick to stop it. In fact, he let it go on for a few minutes, waiting until David was satisfyingly bloody-nosed and his Jamaican contemporary was missing a tooth. Once the crowd seemed sated with their blood lust, he shot his pistol in the air. This made all involved turn their heads, made the brawling men stop mid-strike to turn and look at their leader. Vaas crouched down atop Fransico's cage, brought his chin to his hands. 

"---and wild fucking guess here, gentleman. What do we think Volker makes, huh? A random guess, top of your fucking head---" 

No answer came, just as he expected. There were a few murmurs in the crowd, feet shuffling this way and that. Gone were the outbursts and declarative statements, replaced in their stead were conscious murmurs and idling postures.  _ Children. These men all looked like children.  _

Vaas laughed to himself, threw his legs over the side of the crate and rocked there. "--ignorance is really fucking bliss, no?" 

Again, silence reigned like an ill-gotten ulcer, pulsating, and throbbing with all the tell-tale signs of infection. Vaas sighed, began to feel anger flickering in his chest like the embers of an inhaled cigar. He quenched it though, stashed it beneath himself as if he were scraping the tip of a claro under a raised boot. It wouldn't do to lose himself now. Not when he had been lost for nearly three days prior, shooting and killing everything that so much as moved. He thought of Citra then, thought of her calm vagrant demeanor as she rested her hands on her hips. Something she always did right when she was about to give orders. She was cruel, heartless, but fuck all if she wasn't a good leader. She had always been everything he could never be. While she lacked brawn, Vaas complimented her tactic. Muscle memory had him look cautiously at his side, as if waiting for her to materialize beside him and speak. 

_ A stupid, childish thought. I'm alone as always.  _

"---I have never seen a dumber group of pussies in all my fucking life." He started, hands running down his face and stopping at his neck. "--think of it this way, _ think of it this way _ \--" 

There were a few men standing at the back end of their makeshift auditorium, they soon knelt down. Those who were sitting down in the main circle drew closer on their hands and feet as if Vaas's words were the heat from a fire and they were all freezing. Again, he thought of children, masses of them gathered around to hear an elder's tale. He felt homesick once more, horribly so. 

_ But what would Citra do? Ah, yes she'd appeal to their-- _

"---nature. You stupid fucks forget this shit is all in nature. Law says the strong eat the fucking weak. The tiger catches the gazelle, the shark gets the fish. Bossman eats his good for shit employees. But, _ hermano- _ \--" 

He knelt down, came to their level. "---they all forget they're in the fucking  _ jungle-- _ -" 

Silence reigned for a few more seconds, but a few voices sturred, heads nodding. 

"---why did you come here, huh? I mean, why did you  _ really _ fucking come here? To get pussy? To get rich?  _ No, no, no, please _ . You came here for power, yeah? Power over women, power over every piece of shit white boy who looked at you funny overseas. Power over everyone who thought their shit didn't stink. And Volker---he tells you he can give you all that fucking power, he tells you that all you have to do is work for him, ship his product and the world will be sunshine and roses, yeah? He puts the fucking sun in the sky, he turns the world on its bullshit axis---but he forgets, and this is the real funny part to me--- _ none of it fucking matters- _ \--" 

Vaas stood, moving behind Fransico's crate. 

"---if you're hungry, you fucking hunt. If you want pussy, you find it. Guns? You take them. Drugs? Same fucking deal. All the pleasures in this world come to those who have the fucking balls to go and get them. Nature provides the fucking means, she exists on an axis of balance. She gives to those who take. Volker just so fucking happened to take from  _ you _ \---” 

There was a scream of outrage, a raised fist covered in the burns of a civil war in a long-abandoned home country. “ FUCK THAT!” 

Vaas loved this. “---excuse me?  _ Fuck that? _ Fuck  _ what _ ?” 

“FUCK VOLKER!” Three voices in unison, feet hitting the dirt floor. 

“---huh, I like that. No, I fucking  _ respect _ that.” Vaas brought the brunt of his boot onto the side of the crate, an action that made little Fransico start blubbering again. “---tell me, mis hermanos.  _ Riddle me this _ \---what do we do with traitors? What do we do with those sad fucks that stray from nature, huh?” 

“WE KILL THEM!” 

The mantra was deafening, it made Vaas grin. God, these people believed anything. He saw now how Volker had roped them into all this. He could practically see him leading them on with a trail of breadcrumbs, offering them meager reprieves from poverty. Really, you could see their affliction on their faces, the desperation they hid behind vitriol. 

_ This one wants to help his sick dad.  _

_ This one was once enslaved.  _

_ This poor fuck is just plain hungry.  _

“ VAAS PLEASE, PAPI---PLEASE!” Francisco was screaming now, rocking in his cage but Vaas never looked at him. The Italian’s fingers were bleeding, rubbed raw from trying and failing to pry the bars open. 

“---from now on, understand that these kind of fucking men are beneath you. The man ruled by money is not a man he is a fucking sheep---” 

Vaas forced Francisco, screaming and pleading into the crowd below. The cage broke upon impact but it hardly mattered. Men were on Francisco as if he were chum in shark-infested waters. Some brought blades to him but many others were keen on using the tools nature provided.  _ Fists, fingernails, even elbows. _ It appeared David and the Jamaican driver had made up too, David holding a heavyweight back while the Jamaican started in on Francisco's ankles. Many men were starting to come up painted red, the shrieks of the damned Italian fading into the mantra of roars and shouts of ecstasy. When he finally died no one knew but there wasn’t much of a body left to testify. Even when all that was left were ropes of flesh and still warm blood, they still persisted, rioting together in a fluid motion of arms and legs. Their leader watched them with tainted amusement, hands resting on his chin as he sat cross-legged atop the stage. The only person that was looking at him noted that he looked wide-eyed and distant, almost serene. 

“---you follow me, man and I’ll free your fucking soul---” 

  
  


**-X-**

Inwardly, he thought the entire affair looked like those post-dated football games you'd catch in a New Mexico bar. It was eerily far away, faded in a way that would suggest it was happening in a world and time he had no way of partaking in. The only difference here being that Jason was hanging on every word the announcer was saying. Never would he have thought that he would be grateful that Vaas spoke in such a loud tone but here he was, hanging on every word and syllable as if they were gifts. 

A world without money, a world without laws. God, he could just dream of the possibilities. Even now he was remembering the last shit smear boss he had. A redfaced British fuck whose every editorial revision came back in red, angry ink. It was Jason's fault, in the end. Jason's fault for assuming he could carry a job at a fucking marketing department but  _ whatever. _ How many times had he kissed ass just to stay there though? How many hours were wasted toiling at a shit desk job just to piss it all on rent? 

"---Jason, _ Jason.  _ We have to go---" 

And how easily he forgot that the man two feet away from him had just lost a brother. One would think that this would bring them together, make them similar in some way but Jason felt the exact opposite. He wanted to be  _ there.  _ There in that mosh pit, there with the screaming and the cheers.  _ There with Vaas _ . Nevermind the fact that he had made a mental note that Paolo and his twin were alright people. Nevermind the fact that he had been out hunting with the brothers not twenty-four hours prior. Of course, the mind does not think of these things when it's hooked up to the electrical wire of adrenaline. _ It thinks of excitement, it thinks of thrill.  _

The two of them were a safe distance away, anyway, hiding behind two sparse shacks that appeared to only house spare chains and cufflinks. They had come there with the express purpose of finding Francisco, following the word of Carlos that he was last seen looking through the ashes of dead hostages in hopes of finding gold teeth. An unlikely occurrence, but one had to admire his tenacity. The American only appeared to respond to touch now, his face turning to Paolo’s when two fingers pressed into his arm. Jason’s eyes, however, remained on Vaas who seemed just as placid sitting there on his stage. 

"---Jason, come. Change of plans---" 

"---what?" 

"---oh,  _ gesù cristo _ ." Paolo breathed, moving into the surrounding bush that peppered the compound. Jason instinctively followed. 

"--- _ wait- _ -where are you going?" He asked, trailing behind with his head low. 

"Away from the fucking pirates." 

"--listen, I'm sorry about your brother but Vaas said---" 

"Since when are you so _ puppy puppy _ with him, huh? His word is law, his word is truth? You forget these men sold you as a fucking slave, bianco. You are not one of them." 

Jason felt a sting of anger at that sentiment but chose not to voice it. They were lucky the few snipers left on duty were already high.  _ Opportunity was certainly knocking _ . It would be easy to steal a few guns, gather up Daisy and Keith _. And then what?  _

"---so are we just gonna bum out in the sticks til the civil war blows over?" 

Comforted by Jason's resurging interest, Paolo turned to him. "---listen, amico, tonight I flee but you---they can not see you gone---" Paolo corrected himself. "--- _ Vaas _ can not see you gone." 

Jason opened his mouth to protest but was shushed again. Already behind them, men were branching out in search parties. Paolo, naturally, was next on the chopping block. 

"---you took a radio tower---it was once a lighthouse. Find me there."

“---Rook Point.” 

“That’s the one.” 

"---but what about my---" 

"It is a two-seater plane and I make no round trips. I fly out day after next if you want off this hell-hole-- _ -until then _ \---" 

"---wait, Paolo.  _ Fuck _ \---why are you helping me?" 

"---because my plus one just got gutted and I like you, Jason. You're not like these men, you don't deserve to die with them. This. What they are planning? This is suicide. " His neck craned in the direction of running feet, then back to Jason. "---this isn't your fight, mi amico, never was---" 

"---how will you---" 

" You forget I was a master thief in my past life, friend.  " He grinned at Jason, winked and then disappeared into the palm leaves. 

  
  
  


**-X-**

Funnily enough, Carlos was the last person he had been looking to see. To put it bluntly, Jason had felt too overloaded to think about anything else besides the two-seater plane Paolo had mentioned earlier. The more he thought about it, the more he found the situation irresistibly hilarious. Here he was, trapped on a ravenous island, psychopaths everywhere he looked, and all he had to do to get out of it all was take an ultralight out and over to the closest country. Which had to be Thailand, he thought. But did it even matter? Anywhere would be safer than here.  _ Anywhere. But-- _

Daisy. What about Daisy? Daisy who had come here and lost both a child and a fiance months apart. Daisy who had always been their rock, their support beam. What about her? And Oliver too. Sure, he was making some chump change spinning cards but what would happen the day after next when Vaas inevitably got tired of the same trick?  _ And Riley--- _

"---being out of your living quarters isn't very wise." Carlos said, making Jason realize he was pacing out by the small patch of greenery that grew near the showers. He held a large, open mouthed glass in one hand, one filled with a liquid that looked like someone had slit their wrists and held the wounds over the cup. _ A bloody Mary, perhaps?  _

"---I, uh---I couldn't sleep---" 

Carlos nodded at this, pursed his lips around one of those humourous curly straws only kids and vacationers seem partial too. "--- _ uh huh- _ -well, if Vaas catches you out here, that won't be much of a problem. You'll get plenty of sleep when you're dead." 

"---Vaas is--" Jason stalled, looked to the direction of where the stage was. Smoke was starting to lift from there. "---he's busy." 

" Ah." Carlos replied, taking another sip. "Is that what all that ruckus is? Should have known with all the fucking noise--" 

Jason nodded absently, trained his eyes back to the ground, and considered to start his pacing up again. Inevitably he decided against it, decided to commit to more frugal means of action. "---Carlos, can I ask you something?" 

" Only if it's worth being asked--" Carlos replied, bringing a hand to rest in the pocket of some highlighter yellow swimming trunks. "--what bothers you, hijo?" 

"---those twins. Francisco and Paolo--" Jason started, climbing through a pang of palm leaves to come closer. "---why don't you like them?" 

Carlos considered this, knit his eyebrows together and hummed as if the question required great reflection. "--why do you assume this?" 

"---call it an observation, I guess. When we met them this morning, you seemed--- _ I don't know _ \--dismissive." 

"That's because I was, hijo. I dismiss windy people.” 

"--uh--windy people?" 

"Si, si. Windy people. People who follow the direction of the wind or a new influence. They follow currents rather than ideas." 

"---master thieves can be windy people?" 

Carlos shrugged. " If they rely on the deeds of others to do their work, yes. They're master  _ thieves, _ Jason but not master _ minds _ . This is why they follow, this is why they are  _ windy. _ They always need a leader." 

Jason thought of this. He thought of how Francisco had been eviscerated just for being a follower of Hoyt Volker. He paused again, swallowed as he remembered Paolo's parting words. "--then you think both of them are windy people? They're both... _ liars? _ " 

Carlos considered this a second time, tossed the curly straw into the palm leaves, and tilted the rest of the drink down in one gulp. "---I'm afraid I wouldn't know, hijo. I make it a point not to converse with those type. I'm sure Vaas would know though, he practically hired them." 

  
  


**-X-**

In the main building of Vaas's compound, the same one Jason had stormed through high on hallucinogens, there was a room tucked away neatly atop a rather innocuous flight of stairs. These stairs appeared foreboding because they rested cushioned between two walls that flanked either side of the entrance to a weapons room and a car garage. What was probably once some average joe’s attic had been converted to a storage facility for every passport, driver's license and boarding ticket of anyone trafficked down below. To put it shortly, this was where the vacationer died and the slave assumed his new identity. If Jason were to look, he'd no doubt find his own passport amongst all this mess. The ugly one where he showed up high and slightly sleep-deprived for the picture. But he wasn't looking for his old self here. _ Not anymore at least.  _

Looking at this flickering red bulb, one stolen from some passing naval ship, he realized just how frightened he was. Frightened of what, he couldn't tell but the natural process of elimination said it had to be Vaas. Out of everything that had happened to him here, every tragedy and colossal setback, Vaas had been a constant. A narrative he could neither change nor adapt to, an unpredictable and frightening red herring that changed every time he faced him. Nevertheless, he had begrudgingly come to accept the fact that all roads simply led to Vaas. Vaas had been there when he had arrived on Rook, there again when he was recaptured and now he was behind this door doing God knows what with who knows who.  _ And what was it Jason exactly wanted from Vaas? Advice? An ally? A source of information?  _ He wasn't sure, ironically he was tired of everyone else being just as uncertain. He knocked on the door. 

_ Knocking. What a fucking joke. Do people even knock here?  _ There was no response. He waited to the count of eight, knocked again. Nothing, so he slowly let himself in. 

The smell was what hit him first. Nothing noxious or unclean but pure aerosol and paint. There was smoke in here too, weed or cigarettes, most likely a mixture of both. But this was aided by the fact that there was a glassless window on the far side that wore only a covered tarp for privacy. The room was lit with the same threatening red boat lights that were outside only; they were more sparse, resting in just three corners. Three television sets, two on static and one replaying the  _ Home Alone _ kid mid-scream, were pushed to the far corner and flanked by banker's boxes. Paint canisters were here too, empty spray bottles. But that wasn't the worst of it. There were eyes.  _ Everywhere. Every shade. Every modicum of detail in paint.  _ He followed their shifted irises, found a sheetless bed that housed only a discarded pair of pants, a familiar red wife-beater, and one boot. 

_ Weird.  _

"---Veo pero no veo." 

Jason didn't see Vaas, not at first, but he did manage to catch the rather frightening painting he was working on. The giant. The same red-faced beast that was depicted in fresco in Citra's temple, was staring back at Jason front on. Now, however, he was in full detail. A long serpentine tongue lulled over his chin and across his chest. Arms, completely black, were held outwards and cradling oozing Lilies. If it wasn't so ominous, so foreboding, it would have been impressive. Vaas was sitting somewhere at the ruined headboard of the bed, the giant above him looking like it was leaping at him for an attack. Eerily enough, his hands were just as black, drenched in paint, blood and god knows what else up to the elbow. If it weren't for the green necklace, he wouldn't have recognized him. Not in all that black, not in someone else's clothes. Black cargo pants with a matching shirt that was high collared. He sat bolt upright and cross-legged, fingers tirelessly rubbing at his left wrist with bandages that had clearly had it. One shoe on, eyes looking like china plates. 

"---hey." Jason started. A stupid assertion but what the fuck else could Jason say? He'd never seen Vaas like this. He almost wanted him to start shouting, punching,  _ anything _ . Honestly by the look of him, Vaas had only just now realized Jason was here. His eyes widened at the sight of him, brow furrowing as if he hadn't the idea, know-how or words to describe him. 

_ Jesus, what the fuck did he take?  _

"It's funny, very entertaining--" Vaas trailed, eyes finally slipping to Jason and then back on an idle television. "---I remember, _ specifically- _ \--I remember placing a no gringo policy on this area. No visitors, not without a fucking appointment or two-week notice. No one said you could fucking be here---" 

" Well you left for three days without fucking saying anything." 

Vaas laughed at that but it wasn't in a pleasant tone. It was too low, too deep in his throat. " I left for three days.  _ Da loca  _ I left for three fucking days. You should be thanking me for leaving, wasn't here keeping your bitch ass in line--" 

" Where did you go?" 

Vaas mused, rested his chin on his hands. " Where did  _ you  _ go?" 

" I was here. Where else?" 

Vaas hummed, laid on his back. 

"---what?" 

"---it's just really fucking funny." 

"--- _ what's  _ funny?" 

"That you fucking stayed. That you keep coming back to me." 

"It's not like I have a choice." 

" _ Sure _ ." 

"--what is that supposed to mean?" 

Vaas yawned, obnoxiously so. "No one is fucking watching you, Jason. They're all pissing themselves thinking they've got a fucking snake among them." 

"---my friends are here." 

"You're good at defense, no? You’ve guarded people and cargo trucks and shit. Not to mention--" 

"--- _ ugh. _ I'm not doing this." 

"--and then I take you to the fucking jungle, give you a gun and let you loose--I even lose you for a fucking second, right? And then you're back---" Vaas whistled. "---straight back up my ass again." 

Before he could even reason what to do next, Jason found himself in another one of his blind rages. He felt angry,  _ furious even _ . Furious that on top of everything, Vaas was insulting him. He hopped over the bed, brought his hands around Vaas's throat and pinned a knee to his thigh. Instinctively, Vaas's body went deeper into the bed, his knees locking and one jabbing Jason rather painfully in the side. He grinned, dug his nails into the sides of Jason's hands. 

"---you and your fucking mouth." 

"So fucking sensitive, Jason. My poor princess--" 

Jason expected Vaas to start swinging, wanted him to in fact, but what he did instead had Snow White reeling. He was just staring at his arm, the one with the tattau. His eyes, rimmed red, seemed to follow every design, every dark curve. The hand that was once so violent against Jason’s slipped away, wrapped around his wrist and---

Jason was off of him then, bounding across the bed and over the side as if he expected Vaas of some sort of contagion. 

"---what the fuck---" 

Vaas appeared to not notice Jason was gone, eyes remaining trained up at a ceiling that looked like a ghostly night sky. The flickering static made one see stars. 

"---do you always do this shit?" Vaas started, eyes never leaving the ceiling. "Do you always model yourself after the last motherfucker who paid you some attention?" 

"---fuck you, Vaas." 

"You are angry again, Jason. Always so fucking angry." 

"---you wouldn't fucking get it." 

There was silence then and it was heavy, thick, almost palpable. After what seemed like eons of it, Vaas sat up, brought two fingers to each temple. From an outside perspective he seemed to shake, to waver in his posture. 

"--- _ I want- _ \--I want a fucking cigarette." 

"Get your own fucking cigarette." 

"No." 

"---jesus christ." 

"There are some on the television, bring them here." 

Jason looked to the side, felt lost, Vaas pointed and Jason retrieved a lone box of Marlboros that had warning labels in Chinese. Three were left but one had been halved and forced back in so tightly the tobacco had been forced out the end. He stuck one in his mouth, cautiously passed the other to Vaas who did the same. 

"---lighter." 

"Don't fucking have one." 

"I fucking gave you one." 

"It's shit." 

" _ You're  _ shit. Try it again." 

"Fuck you." 

"Fuck _ you. _ " 

Feeling he could offer no better retort, Jason fished the lighter out of his pocket, the one still dented with the bullet Vaas had tried to put in his chest. Vaas looked surprised at this, perplexed that Jason would even keep such a thing. Amazingly enough, despite all it had been through, the silver cased lighter lit with one go. He lit his cigarette, tossed Vaas the lighter when he was done and they spent another awkward moment of silence just sitting there smoking and staring at each other. Jason exhaled a plume of smoke, flicked ash. 

"---hey. If you were Rakyat---how come they never gave you any tattoos?" 

Vaas chewed on the thumb that held the cigarette, considered the question as if it were dinner plans. "---my father was _ tagata ese. _ He was shit. You have to be full blood to qualify for ink." 

Jason's brow furrowed, looked at his arm. "--uh. Then why--" 

"Who gave you yours?" 

Jason mumbled this next bit, almost embarrassed. "---Dennis." 

Vaas raised his eyebrows as if all had been revealed, laid back down. “ That poor fuck.” 

Jason idled closer, cigarette still held at thigh level. “---what do you mean?” 

“ He thinks she’s going to fuck him. Thinks she’s going to choose him as Ariki. It’s really, really sad, you know?” 

"---what is  _ Arakee _ ?" 

"Ariki." Vaas corrected, taking another drag from the cigarette. "---they really didn't tell you shit, huh?" 

"---well---" Jason stalled, sat on the floor careful not to let his back touch the bed. "---we never---we never got to really talk, I guess." 

Silence again, Vaas's bent leg idling back and forth as he smoked. 

"---what is it then? Ariki." 

Vaas considered this, moved the burning cigarette frontwards so he could catch a glimpse of the lazy embers. "---you know the spider--- _ what's her name- _ \--the black widow? She fucks her boyfriend, eats his head, and all that. It's the same concept, same fucking bullshit---" 

"---uh?" 

"The goddess Tama has to have a son every generation to lead the next. The chosen warrior, the reincarnation from the one from the dumb bullshit story, magically appears and the legacy starts up again. He's a foreigner, comes from a far off land or some shit. He literally gives his life force to her so he can be reborn Rakyat. He cums, then dies." 

“---and Dennis--” Jason paused, fingers nearly burning where his cigarette was starting to crumble. “---wants that?” 

“It’s supposed to be a great honor.” Vaas droned, as if reciting from a paper. He let the cigarette out on his arm, watched the paint there flake off. “---it’s fucking tradition.” 

He remembered absently the father Vaas had mentioned before, the one he claimed  _ wasn’t shit _ . It didn’t take long for Jason to piece together that this was Vaas and Citra’s lineage. They had been born from the same ritual. When the first born had not been a boy, Citra was destined to be her own mother’s replacement. Living goddess, destined and chosen Madonna type. When Vaas came along, he was supposed to fulfill the task set out for him by the Gods. What happened between the two points of past and present was still a mystery but he wondered what it was like living with the knowledge that your own father died for you. How did you go on everyday just _ knowing  _ someone died to give you life? 

“---jeez.” Jason murmured. “---and my dad just off-ed himself.” 

“Oh, man! What a fucking pussy!” Vaas laughed. “ How did he do it?” 

“---shot himself in his studio.” Jason blanched, recalled a painting that looked like it had been slathered in red paint. He was twelve years old. At first he thought his dad was just copying Pollock’s splatter paint style. He had only gone out there for a fucking soda in the mini fridge. “---I saw---” 

“ Is that why you’re so fucked up?” 

“I guess.” 

Inwardly, Jason started to feel himself tense. He had made it a point to tell very little people about his father's little stunt in their Santa Clarita garage. It was why they had relocated at such short notice, why his mother stuck all three of her boys into private study until her boisterous middle child demanded to go to a proper high school. When word did get out, when the inevitable question _ “hey where's your dad?”  _ came up in conversation, he'd always have to get ready for that  _ look.  _ The teary,  _ oh my goodness you poor thing, look. _ Subliminally you think they don't mean it, you wonder if they are halfway resentful you brought it up or if you think them saviors for offering you sympathy. Jason  _ hated  _ sympathy. He hated the idea of someone crying over him or feeling pity. The thought was set on mute when he realized Vaas was moving again.

“---what are you fucking doing?” Jason asked, watching Vaas rummage over to the pants he had left strewn half-hazardly over the bed. 

“---looking for the fucking remote--” He threw a hand towards the television set, the one that had once shown the screaming child, now showed a bandit humorously getting his winter hat torched off. “---ten thousand fucking TVs in this bullshit place and all they can ever fucking play is  _ Bonanza _ \---” 

Jason had wondered why there were so many television sets on this compound, sympathized with the frustration but _ fuck.  _ Maybe it was the drugs, the clear lack of sleep or the general madness, but Vaas wasn’t looking for a fucking remote. Several times he gave a great sniff, a sharp intake of air that caused his eyes to lull nearly closed and back up again. Once he even hit himself, hard, on the side of the head with a clenched fist. 

“---do you ever fucking sleep?” 

“No.” 

“You should. You look like shit.” 

Vaas seemed to have found what he was looking for in the lower pocket, the cargo pouch, it was stringy and wrapped around his hand. Something black. 

“ Come here, peritto.” 

“---why?” 

“ Just fucking come here. Papi brought you a fucking present for good behavior. C’mere.” 

Jason was reluctant but when Vaas began to bring his hands up to cover his face, nails slightly digging into the flesh above the eyebrows, he decided to comply. It was as if Vaas was just simmering on all that anger, it was coming up but his body was either too exhausted or high to catch up with it. What resulted was a stall of some sort, a failure in the cognition of thought to action. When Jason was before him again, Vaas was still kneeling and Jason was standing next to the bed, his shoulders seemed to untense. 

“---you disobey me. All the fucking time, you don’t listen. When I say--” 

“ What’s the fucking present?” 

“---no, no, no. Please. You don’t get a fucking present. When I say come, you say ‘right away’, you get me? Do we understand each other now?” 

“Crystal clear, Vaas.” 

He must have been high because now he was giving him the present he just got through telling Jason he wasn’t worthy of. Forcefully, Vaas grabbed the arm at Jason’s side and turned the palm up. What was left there was another of those pendants, one nearly identical to the one Vaas wore but the signia was more intricate. Two carved pillars that resembled yin and yang swirled together in a hollow space. Jason toyed with it between his fingers a little, laid out the cut leather so it dangled from his hand. 

“---is this,  _ for me? _ ” 

_ “Dios _ _ mío.  _ You ask the dumbest questions sometimes, Jason. I fucking tell you I’m gonna give your stupid ass a present and you still ask if its for you.  _ Unbelievable. _ ” 

Jason studied it some more, fingers tracing along the edges of leather that had burnt to seal the edges. A tapir, perhaps, maybe an unfortunate boar. It was well made, surprisingly enough, unmistakably Rakyat craftsmanship.

“---what for?” 

“Jade is good luck. Now you won’t fucking take mine when you do dumb shit. ” 

Again, Vaas said this in a manner of fact tone that said the aforementioned should be obvious. Privately, Jason couldn’t comprehend why Vaas would have put so much effort in this. It was apparent the little trinket would have taken time and concentration, both of which Vaas seemed to have a limited amount of.

“---is this what you were doing all those three days?” Jason replied, slipping the necklace on and over his shirt. “ You were making necklaces?” 

Vaas hummed, tilted his head as he still knelt on the bed. He looked at Jason as if he were a painting in full display, a completed picture. Sizing up the necklace with its new owner. The light from the television screen flashed as another scene played out, Vaas’s face looked like a skull. 

“---you’re very concerned about the last three days. Very concerned about my fucking business.” 

“Not really.” 

“ Yes really, motherfucker. Again and again, you ask. Questions, questions. That’s all there is with you.” 

“---well, I don’t know. There’s nothing to fucking do here when you leave. It’s like---I don’t know---the whole fucking compound shuts off.” 

This seemed to quiet Vaas, his eyes lidding slightly as he gave another shrug. “ What would you prefer, Snow White? Do you want a fucking parade, a fucking party?” 

“Yeah, actually. That would be great.” 

Vaas hummed again, sitting down and crossing his legs. Absently he brought his chin to his hands. Realized this was too comfortable a position, toyed with the bandages again. That’s when Jason realized just how damaged his hands were, every knuckle split, the fingers traced by scuff marks that looked red and irritated. _ Then he painted with them.  _

“---listen, if you uh---need to go to bed or---” Jason felt supremely awkward now, didn’t know why. “ I can like, go.” 

“---go fucking where?” 

“ Back to our hut. With Daisy and Keith I mean--” 

Vaas looked like this wasn’t a satisfactory answer, eyed the television with all the static as if there was something actually on there. Jason followed his gaze, looked back to him. 

“---listen. Sleep would probably be good, I mean---” What am I his mother? God, shut the fuck up. “---there’s probably another outpost to take back, right? Somebody that needs shooting--” 

It was silent again. The televisions flickered, threw their light over the walls in strobe effects. Jason looked at this instead of at Vaas, didn’t want to see the confusion in his face. Did not want to hear the accusations that would come, the incessance of intrusion. 

“Someone is coming to kill me.” Vaas’s tone was dry and to the point. When Jason looked at him, he realized he was staring straight at him, almost accusatory. 

Jason blanched. “---what?” 

“Someone is gonna kill me.” 

“What, now?” 

“ Maybe not now, or tomorrow. But someone fucking is. I know it. They can be Rakyat, or privateers, maybe even some of my men. Maybe even a fucking hostage, like you. It’s a matter of time, matter of when---” Vaas paused, gaze returning to the screen. “---I just want to fucking see them coming. I want to get a good look at their fucking face. I want to them to look me in the fucking eye when I go, I want them to know---” 

Jason waited for the continuation of this. Waited for the big climax to what Vaas would want his would be murderer to know but it didn’t come. What was there in its stead was one of their many silent contemplation periods, the sound of some lone bird crying in the far distance the only intrusion. By now, Jason’s cigarete was well and truly spent. All ash, he flicked it to the ground and stepped over it. Dully, he realized he had learned a few things about Vaas in this short period. He had learned a bit about his family, his culture. But inevitably, like a dental surgeon extracting a tooth, Jason had shared himself with Vaas too. He had told him, without even thinking about it, about his father’s death. And he had thrown it out there like it was a passing gossip, a matching set of dialogue. It was never that easy before, not even with Liza. Liza who had pat his arms and started her tears, told him how brave he was to tell her. 

There was none of that with Vaas. There were no formalities, no courtesy remarks or apologies for overstepping. With Vaas he never had to monitor his swearing, never had to backtrack or explain things in a manner that was more palpable or easier to digest. The world to Vaas, was inherently much more simple. The edicate of human interaction was a sharpened tool, a dull leather knife used to cut the straps used for necklace pendants. In a way it was relieving. Frightening, unpredictable, but it gave you a sense there was no wrong answer. Here on Rook, anything was possible. No topic left unchecked. 

“---well, I’m not doing shit tomorrow so--” Jason paused, rubbing the back of his head. “---I can like keep watch, or something. Look out for this bandit that supposed to kill you--” 

Vaas looked at Jason with that incredulous look he sometimes gave him, brow furrowing. “---yes. And how do I know you won’t be the one coming to slit my fucking throat, huh? How do I know you’re not gonna get cute?” 

Jason shrugged, mimicking Vaas a little. He brought the jade on his neck forward, showing Vaas. 

“--cause Jade is good luck.” 


	10. Carpe Diem.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carpe Diem - Seize the Day!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first half of this is very horny. skip to the next half and look for the X if you're not down to clown.

From the spaces where the tarp could not cover the window, Jason saw the flaxen tint of a new sunrise. Sunrises on Rook were simply breathtaking, mesmerizing in a manner that he had seen nowhere else. When the sun rose it looked a little like the gleam one would see on a wedding band, an eclipsing gold into the candy floss of hovering clouds and coming rains. In Singapore, the sunrise was cream-colored. In Los Angeles, it was nearly grey, blotted out completely by an endless supply of pollution and jet exhaust. Jason breathed deeply, sighed, and lifted his face from a caseless pillow. A pressure at the base of his skull stopped him then, fingers gripping strands of hair in an awful vice. He was on the bed, crammed to once side. 

_That's right. Vaas is here._

Funny, he had no recollection of falling asleep. A brief argument, yes. That was crystal clear. The conversation had once been about Vaas's refusal to let Jason act as a sentry for the night. Then it had kickstarted to how Jason couldn't tell his lefts from his rights. Somehow they winded up on the topic of romantic comedies, many of which could be found in a box full of nothing but VHS cassettes and their spent tapes. _Something about Mary. Meet the Folkers._ Nothing over the year 2000 and even that was stretching it. Vaas tended to collect movies of a certain caliber. They were either deliriously funny, your _Happy Gilmore_ types or they were perverse and macabre. _Texas Chainsaw Massacre. A Clockwork Orange. Hellraiser._ These kinds of movies far outweighed the Romantic comedies. Which was a relief because Jason enjoyed few other types of films. His father once led him to believe he was named after the famed antagonist of the _Friday the Thirteenth_ series. He was so pleased with this news his father hadn't the heart to correct him until he was ten. The truth was a lot less thrilling. His mother, beside herself with the news that she was not getting the daughter she wanted, threw her hands up in a rage and the baby name book just so happened to land on the J page. Jason was at the top of the list. 

Slowly he turned to face Vaas, the fingers in his hair growing lax as they realized what he was up to. If Vaas was ever asleep, Jason would not know it. His eyes were closed, _yes,_ but he was clearly awake enough to loosen his death grip on the back of his head. 

_He won’t fall asleep in front of me. How typical._

"---Vaas." 

No response. 

"I know you're awake. Stop it."

Still nothing. 

  
  


Taking this as a perfect opportunity to gain some more leverage on the bed, Jason fully laid on his side, keeping his back as unencumbered as possible. In a way, he wanted to test Vaas, see how long he could play sleep and start back to yelling. Worse enough, and he hated to admit this part, it gave him a chance to just _look_ at him. As bizarre as it sounded now, he always found himself staring at Vaas these days. As shameful as it was to admit, he had a presence that simply commanded one’s _everything._ He took more than just your attention and line of sight. Vaas took your heart rate, the levels of adrenaline in your blood. He told himself it was the photographer in him, the shred of himself that was still artistic and sensitive to such a thing. _Vaas was just nice to look at._ Not in a vulgar way, he supposed. But in a naturalistic way, the allure one has to sloping hills and impossible cliffsides. It is a dangerous sight, but it is impulsive, you want to look just too see how far the expansive terrain goes. You think about falling in, wonder what it's like for those brief few minutes before you hit the ground. Jason would have loved to watch him through a scope or camera. He would have loved to sit and marvel at the way he moved, the way he fiddled with something in his hands when idle. Not the case now, of course. Vaas was still. Horrifically still and for a moment Jason thought of all the times he had seen someone die of an overdose on television. 

_But he is on his side. That means he can’t choke if something comes up. What if he had a heart attack or something? That happens right?_

Jason stopped himself from divulging further. While he told himself this was because he reasoned that his life would be eons better if this man was truly dead, he was calmed by the long drawn out breath Vaas gave out. A long take, the typical one you hear from someone in a deep sleep. The not-quite sighs but they live in the same neighborhood. The hand that was once so painfully gripped on his hair began to curl over his ear. Jason remembered now, Vaas had forced him to look at the wall and held him there. Probably so Jason wouldn't realize he was nodding off but _whatever_. Now the hand was relaxed, fingers curling into the palm. They were still black with paint though.

"---Vaas?" 

One last chance to answer and it wasn’t taken. Given that he had some reason to believe the drug lord was well and truly out, he decided now to return to his initial reason for turning here. 

_I just want to look at him. I never get to just look at him. He is always going somewhere, always leaving---_

These thoughts were not normal, they were perverse and misplaced but God that didn’t stop him from taking every detail he could and storing it in his memory like a packrat. On Vaas’s throat, right before the stubble really set in, Jason could see two small marks that looked like vampire bites but too close. Citra was covered in those same little black marks, moles that looked as if someone had taken a dry brush and spattered her in its paint. There were two under her breasts, one below her stomach. Only naked would you notice them.

_Where are his?_

Another stupid thought. He washed it away when he noticed Vaas's jaw clench and then unclench again. 

_He grinds his teeth in his sleep. His teeth look good though. Like you’d think a pirate would have shit teeth but--_

Jason brought a hand to the hard line of Vaas's jaw, traced it all the way up to the base of the ear, wanted to touch the scar that started at the eyebrow but his eyes were trained to his mouth--

_You taste like---_

He told himself that the best possible scenario would be that Vaas would wake up and start screaming. They'd start back on their regular routine of insults and swearing, maybe even a fight. _Yes, a fight would have been marvelous right now._ Preferably a clean swift jerk to the jaw but it was not coming. Vaas was out, whatever he had taken last had well and truly taken him down for the count and all Jason could think about was the word _want._ It wasn't a want for food or drink, these feelings have names. They are sensations of deprivation, a loss that needs replenishing. This was a need for completion. If you have ever had the great satisfaction of putting the last piece into a long puzzle then you know the feeling. It is a feeling of oneness, a unity that is natural and complete. 

_I'm fucking hard._

"---Vaas." These thoughts needed to go. He slapped Vaas on the side of the face, producing a rather startling flip of the eyes that went back down like pulled over blinds. 

"-- _-_ fucking _what_ \---" Vaas furrowed his brow, looked at Jason as if he were new and unnamed. He gave another one of his deep, sleep laden breaths, rolled onto his back, and looked at the door. Whatever he said under his breath, it sounded like a question in french. Still staring at the door, his head tilted and rested on the other side. One prominent river of blood started to pour out of a nostril, the inside rubbed raw from days of random cocaine hits. 

"--- _jesus christ_. Vaas!" Jason reached over and caught Vaas's face, forced him to look at him though his eyes were closed. They were nearly chest to chest, Jason's one arm making it so he hovered over Vaas. Jason slapped him twice. " Get it the fuck together!" 

Vaas laughed that typical college drunk girl laugh, a spiteful awful thing. The blood from his nose collected at the top of his lip, siphoned through the whiskers and ran through the cracks of his teeth. _His perfectly straight white fucking teeth he has no business of having._ He was grinning at Jason now. Jason held his head there and glared down at him. 

"--- _you're fucking_ \---you're a fucking rat, Jason. You're a piece of shit cornered fucking rat and you tell me---you fucking tell me to get it together--" 

"---Vaas." He started, marveling at the fact that he could snap this man's neck if he had the mind to. In some ways, this was all he wanted to do. In other ways, he simply just _wanted._ When he delved deeper into this want he realized it was connected with Vaas's attention. He wanted Vaas to look at him. He wanted Vaas to be interested and fascinated and out of this bizarre stupor he was under. _Stop fucking leaving me. Even now you're going someplace you won’t let me follow. Why?_ He considered his options, flicked through his recent memory like an old picture book. He thought of Paolo. Went to stop his thoughts from turning to words. 

"---listen, I have---I've been thinking---" 

Vaas hummed, eyes lidding and bouncing open only to half close a second time. "---a very rare fucking occurrence for you, Jason." 

" Listen to me." 

"I _am_ listening." 

"---I know where Paolo is." 

Vaas rolled his eyes, attempted to stand. " I need to take a piss." 

Jason stopped him, forced him back down. "---no. _Listen._ I know where he is. He told me." 

Vaas looked at Jason with obvious skepticism. "---I see. Why the fuck would he do that?" 

" Because he wants me to go with him. He's gonna fly outta here." 

"---fly outta here? On a fucking plane?" 

" Yes. He has a two-seater." 

Vaas stared at him for a long time and Jason began to feel that familiar itch in his stomach, the one he told himself he had to save only for Liza. _But I never go around begging for Liza's attention. I never categorized every feature of Liza's body like a fucking freak._ He wanted more than just Vaas's attention, he reasoned now. He wanted something more elevated, something permanent.

_Where is this coming from? Where? Get away from it. Run from it._

"---if I give you him. If I tell you where he is, will you let us go? And Riley, you could--" 

"There's no two-seater fucking plane, Jason. " Vaas said, staring at the ceiling. 

"---and you know that _how_?" 

Vaas looked absolutely exacerbated, the first time Jason had ever seen him in such a way. Suddenly he saw on him the two weeks of no sleep, the rebate of a fortnight of a steady diet of uppers and inhalants. Jason almost felt guilty. Guilty for the feeling that was tightening in his pants.

_Get away from it. Get away._

Vaas brought a hand under his nose, wiped it away on the center of his shirt and left his arm over his stomach. 

"---you know why I killed that fucking scrawny shit in the cage? You know why he had to die?" 

Jason stared him down again, shook him when he started to drift a second time, and kept one hand firmly wrapped around his arm to prevent this from happening again. 

"---he was sounding an alarm or some shit. Telling big daddy Volker about you. About your--- _I don't even fucking know_ \---didn't want us having fun and shit. Killed the party, killed the fucking feeling--" Vaas laughed, face falling to the side of the pillow and eyes closing again. "---he was gonna take you away. _It's okay though._ I took care of it---" 

Jason caught his face, forced him once again to look at him. He was halfway grateful for the distraction, it felt more natural to focus on the enemy again.

“---does Volker know I’m here?” 

Vaas grinned, laughed that spiteful juvenile laugh he gave when he was starting to get smart. It was that same laugh he gave when he and Grant were in that cage, the same when he had straddled him in the van. His mouth would do this scheming little uptick, a grin that looked half Cheshire and snake oil salesman. At that moment Jason saw red again--

_I know you so fucking well. You don't even realize it. You don't even fucking know how much I watch you. You don't know---_

Jason wanted to hit him. He wanted to smash those perfect teeth in. He wanted to make them as crooked and fucked as Vaas was. He had no right looking the way he did, talking the way he did. Fairytales said that villains were ugly, gnarled looking creatures. They were supposed to be hunchbacked and slimy, old and withered out. _They're supposed to look like Hoyt._

Even now, as he began to grasp at Vaas's throat, he marveled at how firm this man's body was. He was straddling him now, thighs pinned to either side of Vaas's torso so that he couldn't squirm his way out and free. Under him, he was amazed how there wasn't an inch of fat on Vass, the aftereffect of being raised on a steady diet of fruits and caught game. Jason had to work to look as he did, five days at a paid membership gym with cheat days only on the weekends. Only now was Jason's toned physique effortless, his slimmer waist due only to the fact that he had had to go days without eating. 

Vaas's eyes looked lazy underneath their lids, his body pushing itself up on the backs of his heels as his hands eclipsed the sides of Jason's wrists. They were amazingly green, these eyes, the kind of jade he'd always sworn was good luck. They were set in nearly purple sockets, lids that were beginning to redden at the indentations because they'd been forced open so long. He was exhausted, horrifically fatigued, and on his last rope. Even with all that, he still looked eager to fight Jason. His nails began to dig into his skin, the index of one slicing the open maw of a shark tattooed above his wrist. 

"---what now, Jason? You're gonna kill me, huh? You're gonna finally fucking do it?" 

Vaas pulled himself upward, their foreheads touching as his he gained leverage on the pillow behind him. Jason idled on the question, flirted with it as if it were posed as something casual like summer vacation or the location of a party. And without having to be asked or prompted, as if he had read his mind, Vaas continued. His eyes had trailed away from Jason, looked somberly to the ceiling that still flashed with the occasional disturbance from the television. It was as if he knew this was another one of their conversations that went nowhere, a talk that would end as a fight. 

_Because you know me as well as I know you, right? I can't hide anything from you, you won't fucking let me._

"---and what if he does know? What difference does it fucking make?" 

This apathy was not like Vaas, quite the opposite really. It was like Oliver, aloof, indifferent. It made Jason feel angry again.

"---what the fuck does that mean?" 

"You're never gonna leave this island, Jason." Vaas said, eyes slipping back closed. " You fucking know that." 

Something about that statement, the absolution of it, the control, it spurred something in Jason. It was like cobwebs swept from an old basement, water turned from a rusted over faucet. His groin throbbed, his penis already hardening. Mentally he reasoned with himself that this had to anger. Yes. He was confused, high, maybe both. He was excited to start beating Vaas, to pumble his face in. _Break his teeth. His mouth._ When Jason decided to let himself go, to lax the restrain on Vaas's throat, he thought it would end in another brawl. He thought he'd let go and they'd be back in their casual routine of beating the shit out of each other but _no._ When he finally let himself go, when he finally told himself to stop thinking and act, he was on Vaas but in a different way. 

_You want me here. You said it. You won't let me leave so you want me here._

The taste was salty, blood from Vaas's nose that had traced into his mouth. The kiss was lazy, sloppy, but it gained momentum when Vaas brought his arms around Jason's shoulders and pulled him closer. It almost hurt, the gnashing of teeth, the dry grinding of hips still clad in their respective pants. But when their tongues started to meet, when Vaas began to match Jason with a tentative swirl, Jason started to feel panic.

_What the fuck is happening? What am I doing?_

Jason pushed his hips harder into Vaas, an action that made him respond by wrapping his legs around his calves and grinding right back. Jason let out a less than graceful moan, Vaas immediately turning his face to the side when Jason went in on his neck. He had showered, thank god, so the taste of his hot skin was purely his natural essence. 

_Oh god. I want you. Out of everyone in the world, I want you. Why. This is fucked._

_Tell him to stop._

_But this is all me. I'm on top of him._

_Tell him to stop._

His skin was hot, warm and when Jason bit down on his throat, Vaas made a humming sound. 

_He's still half way out of it. He's tired maybe. He's doing this as a joke._

Jason brought his tongue over Vaas's trachea and worked his way up by the ear. 

_Has he done this before? With a man? Who was it? When?_

He thought about his brief stint with homosexuality, the three bar hookups in nightclubs after hours. He thought of Liza with a strap-on looking nervous and waiting for the go-ahead to fucking start the missionary position. His experimentation with the same sex had been another one of his countless thrill rides. It was another hunger that needed feeding, a curiosity that he kept secret. He thought of Vaas then, thought of the very real possibility that there it had been others in this position before him. He was suddenly furious again. 

"---I know---I know what I'm doing---" Jason said out of breath, looking down at him. Vaas looked up, eyes reduced to slits. Jason's hair had been jostled into a bird's nest. 

"---fantastic, Jason. You have credentials in dick." He replied, hands slipping up and down Jason's thighs as if he'd never felt the fabric before.

"---I uh---I-- _-this is fucked up_ \---" Jason said, groin still going straight into the other man's. Vaas found this revelation ridiculous, started to paw at the belt that sat low on Jason's hips. 

"---mhm. I agree. Should have lit some candles. Got some wine and roses. Made it all fucking romantic for you---" 

"Fuck you, Vaas." Jason pulled the belt free, threw it to the side and away.

"---mhm. This is what I'm trying to do, this is my goal. But you're having a crisis or some shit, crying as usual---" 

"I'm not fucking crying. Stop saying that shit. You tell everyone I'm fucking crying and---" 

"You're crying right now, honey. _Crying over crying_ \---"

"God, I fucking hate you, I hate---" He brought his mouth down on Vaas's again, losing breath as he began to fully straddle him. His hands felt needy, empty, so he began to allow them to roam and search. Vaas's pants were belt-less thank god and they were opened easily enough but that wasn't enough for Jason. _No, he wanted everything_. Vaas was busy in the crook of his neck, arms eclipsed around him as his mouth placed lazy open-mouthed nips at the skin there. Jason was in Vaas's shoulder, breathing him in as one hand curved around a hip bone. However, something was strange. He had been expecting nothing but smooth, tightened muscle but the skin was rigid. Scars. There were hundreds of careful, raised ridges that aligned the abdomen and all the way up to the center of the ribcage. Jason broke away from Vaas now, an action that made Vaas audibly groan in displeasure.

"---what the fuck!?" 

Vaas's arms were still around Jason's neck as he started to sit up, but inevitably he released him. He looked confused, staring up at Jason as he sat up on top of him and began lifting his shirt over his midsection. Jason ran his hands up Vaas's sides, face dropping in shock. The scars there were healed, sure, but they had been horrific and deep. Some of them, most, in fact, had been lined side by side as if the inflictor had started one session and then returned later with a new offense. 

From what he could see, there was no longer a navel at his center, only a diagonal slice mark where a dagger had gone in and nearly gutted him. Jason laid his hands flat against Vaas's chest, which was rising as he began to sit up. There was no shock in his face, which made all this worse. Only realization. He said something then but Jason didn't hear it, his hands moving to guide him off of him so that he could attempt to reason with him. 

_Too late._

Jason was reminded of the cold hard stone underneath him, the burn of ropes at his wrists and ankles. Burning incense, someone sobbing, someone singing. He turned his head to the side, looked at the woman tied up beside him. Her eyes were wet, her face hallowed from days of starvation. She said she loved him. She said she was sorry. Citra came over, shushed the woman as if she weren't the one doing this to her. She stroked her brown hair, hummed to her as if she were a baby fussing for sleep. 

"No. Understand you die not of your own mistakes but Jason's--" 

Citra raised that ritual knife, the same one he had been stupid enough to go fetch for her, and plunged it in straight into the woman's back. But unlike with Jason's torture, it went straight through her, breaking her ribcage and piercing her heart. _She died instantly._ Jason started screaming and hands forced him to look, held them there. Suddenly it was Liza who had just died, Liza who had been calling for him and straining toward him despite her bonds.

_You are here because you lack loyalty._

The room was spinning, spinning, the stone beneath him leaving. 

_The world is a diagonal. I am the balancing point._

_Wakhama. Wakhama. Wakhama._

The temple was gone. The stone replaced with those blazing red ship lights. Suddenly he was no longer on top of Vaas but beside him. Vaas was looking down at him, one hand supporting his weight as he looked down at him. When Jason's breathing started to slow, when he started to look at Vaas and not the ceiling, he realized there was a hand steading his face. A palm was placed at the side of his cheek to force him to focus. He looked at Vaas who slapped him twice. Vaas’s entire profile was smeared with blood now. His neck, where Jason had been practically biting, had the same red angry markings all over it. A big purple mark in the perfect shape of Jason's mouth was already starting to form there at his throat. There was a sense of understanding on Vaas's face now, a soft recognition in the way he looked at him. It was as if he were recognizing a friend in a crowd, a return of normalcy. 

"---that shit will stop." He said, fingers going through Jason's hair. It felt calming, it brought him back to earth. "---in time, it won't bother you anymore." 

"---what---" Jason started, hands gripping at Vaas's. "---what was that?" 

Vaas replied but the word wasn't in English. He corrected himself, hummed, and went back to lay on his side. Jason secretly wished he would continue stroking his hair. 

"---think of it as mental conditioning, you know? Scar, knife, these things become synonymous with punishment. You are trained not to fuck up anymore. That's how she fucking gets you." 

His face was in the pillow now, eyes lidding again. It was as if none of this had ever happened. The attempted intercourse, the panic attack. Vaas was back to his low energy state, one hand underneath his head. Jason drew closer, moved Vaas's free hand so that it was back on his head again, a mirror of the position they had started in. He needed a soft human touch, a reminder that such a thing even existed. _Something._ Anything to get the memory out from brewing in the back of his head. He focused on Vaas, the only thing that he knew was real at the moment. He felt like a child again, a kid fresh from a fucking nightmare. 

"---why did she punish you?" 

Vaas said nothing, let his fingers lax, and unlax in small circles in Jason's hair. This slowed soon enough and Vaas's breathing began to deepen again. Though he was tired too, he was much too frightened now to slip into sleep. Instead, he held Vaas's hand to his head as if their connection would prevent him from going back to that awful place clad in stone. Jason laid there for nearly an hour. Watching Vaas. Taking in his relaxed features, the subtle way his cheek raised against the pillow. 

_I'm so fucked. We are so fucked._

Someone shot a gun somewhere in the camp. It barely registered in Jason's mind, the sound had become a lot like car alarms in suburbia. Background noise. An inconsequential occurrence.

\- X - 

The pirates had been eerily friendly towards him since he had arrived here the second time. He began to feel like one of those circus animals you see in all the protest commercials. Bears with tiny fez hats, elephants in headdresses, and clown horns held in their trunks. To these people, he was not Oliver Carswell, sole heir to the Carswell clothing company. He was simply Ollie, the camp fool who could turn a few card tricks and pull coins out of people's ears. Honestly, he didn't understand the fuss or the attention but he imagined it was better than any kind of alternative. The man beside him had become something of a personal bodyguard, a familiar face that stuck around for the express purpose of palm readings Oliver made up on the fly. Chewie, or whatever his real name was, had become an impromptu assistant. While most magicians got the babe in the sequin dress, Oliver had the four hundred pound behemoth with a pension for the silent treatment. _Just his luck._

"---uh, Chewie?" Oliver started, lining up beside two Liberians with sniperrifles on their backs. "---what's going on?" 

As usual, Chewie didn't answer him. He just stood tall with his back straight and his arms folded cooly to his chest. He nodded to a few wavering pirates who had come from the bushes where the had been smoking since midnight. The campgrounds were a sea of red and black, nearly identical bandannas and cargo pants. He realized that he looked more or less like them now, his obvious blonde hair hidden behind a bandanna and then his hat. This wall of red surrounded a group of four men who looked bizarrely misplaced in their yellow riot gear. 

" Good morning, gentleman." 

Oliver didn't really know what a privateer was but he had heard the word in passing. The man speaking now was clad in the sort of yellow you would think a traffic guard would be wearing. His friends with him wore the same getup, their high bright visors and helmets making them look like pustules in a sea of red. All of them carried explosive weapons, grenade launchers with overtly large scopes. _Overkill, sure, but here was no man's land._ The man who spoke was the only one without a helmet. He had a douchebag hair cut, hair slicked back, and behind his ears so he looked like a grown-up Alfafa with no cowlick. 

" Do we know why we're here today? What brings us here, I hear you ask--" His accent was midwestern, drawling. A good ol' boy as his grandma used to say. Nobody appeared to want to answer him so he continued. 

"---well, Mr. Volker isn't really happy with you lot. You see, one of our own came up to us with a rather fantastic story." 

Oliver vaguely remembered talk of something happening last night, assumed it was some kind of inside joke he just wasn't privy to. The wannabe Alfalfa started in on his roam around the vicinity, hand on a holstered gun that looked like something you'd see in an old spaghetti western. 

"---say, uh--where's the guy in charge here? Mr. Montenegro, I believe." 

" He's minding his fuckin’ business." Chewie finally called. " You should fuckin’ try it." 

The crowd roared with laughter and didn't stop when Mr. Good ol’ boy pulled that pistol out and shot it the air. Oliver began to feel frightened, tense, scanned the crowd for Jason. 

_No Jason. No Vaas. Not a good sign._

"---gentleman, please. Order in court." 

" And what have we here?" Carlos swanked out in a wife beater and matching domestic slippers. He came from the side, the crowd parting for him. In his hand he had one of those dimestore mugs you only see middleaged mom’s collect. _Not before coffee,_ the side of it read. 

"No, no." Mr. Good ol' boy said. " Now, I didn’t ask for the second in command. I asked for your superior." 

"Well, he's not here, señor. Won't be for some time I don't think." 

" And why is that?" 

"Business." 

“See this is our problem, gentleman. We're all friends, you know? Your business is our business." 

Chewie snorted, spat at the man's seal skin boots. "Then how come your business turns up a prettier coin, huh? I ain't strollin' up here in some hanky panky suit and slick back hair." 

Mister Good boy dusted a collar that was neither dirty or there, ignored the numerous sounds of agreement and cheers. He looked at Chewie the same way you might look at a toddler who spilled his milk. _Sure, you meant that to be rude but you don't know any better. You'll understand in time. You'll learn the way the world works, how we ought to behave._

"You know I really ought to speak with Vaas." He stated, looking around at the band of misfits that had all started to gather there as if they were cells clotting a wound. 

"---I thought we was all friends here, man." Chewie started, Oliver obediently following after him like a lap dog to his master. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Keith coming from another hut. He was holding a basket of what looked like freshly cut bamboo. He walked out, saw the men in yellow, and went back in again. 

"Surely, whatever you have to say to the boss, you can say to us." Chewie said, three other heavyweight types picking up on his intention and joining in. To this Carlos visibly tensed, pushed aside the four larger men, and put himself center stage. 

"--caballeros, _please._ We are capable of civil conversation, no? We can talk like friends." Carlos threw a hand to the douchebag. "Like business people." 

"---yes." Said the general, his southern accent conveniently disappearing now that he was more on edge. "Well, I'll be frank. Mr. Volker isn't happy with the arrangments of what went down with a Mr. Pettucci, I believe his name was? See, we have an informant who says you guys axed his brother for being a tattle-tale." 

If this were a movie, this would be the part where everyone would gather and go silent. Oliver thought of the sheriff and bandit circling each other in tandem. An old horseshoe nailed to a staple's wood, the red of a setting sun accompanying the familiar twang of a banjo and whistle score. However, this was not a movie and these were not frightened townsmen shuttering their windows and calming fainting wives. The men here all burst out in a vicarious upheaval of laughter, some slapping each other on the backs and hollering as if they'd just been told a grand joke. 

"---you folks seem to misunderstand." The general spoke up, cutting a look of disgust at them all. "---Volker doesn't take kindly to double-crossers and backstabbers." 

"---backstabbers?" Carlos repeated, ignoring the disruptive behavior of his contemporaries. "---sir, do you realize what you do for a living, what your boss does? We have made backstabbing a profession." 

" Not amongst ourselves, _amigo_. " The general said this in a pantomime, almost mocking fashion. Oliver had heard college frat boys take the same tone when they ate out at a taco truck. "That would be sabotage." 

Carlos smiled, held his hands behind his back as if he'd just heard a witty teenager misquote Shakespeare. "---I see. So you want to speak to Vaas, why?" 

"---because---" There was no mistaking the exacerbation in his voice here. "---because he oversaw the death of one of our own." 

"One of your own, huh? I thought we were all friends here." 

The General said nothing, laid a hand over his holstered gun much like the bad bandit would in all those Westerns Oliver had seen. "---I really don't want trouble with you. Get your superior." 

"---I don't think I will," Carlos replied, sipping from his dimestore mug and making a refreshing _aah_ sound straight after. "---so you want Vaas for what? You’ll hang him for heresy?”

The general turned pink, stepped closer. Carlos raised a hand. 

"---and then what? The rest of us go on leaderless. You stop getting in shipments, no one holds your hostages and no one bags your weed. Then, _my good man_ , you start losing income. This inevitably means, you get shipped down here to do the same schlock day in and day out the rest of us do. No bueno, not good for you. So, no you aren't looking for Vaas to punish him--" 

The general pulled out his gun, aimed it right at Carlos's head as he got another sip of his coffee. The men around him began to stir, raising their guns as well. This made the privateers falter, the three in back shifting with their RPGs but realizing shooting them would be an instant suicide. There were too many people, too many surrounding objects for the explosion to ignite a fire. He had been told these people were docile, told they respected authority and knew when to fucking quit. 

“---you want Vaas to punish us. You want to go back there, grease his palms with money and convince him we need reigning in, yeah? Very clever.”

"---stand back. Stand the fuck back!" The privateers were forced into a corner, aimed their guns at a group of people who had forty more on them. 

Carlos finished his coffee, tossed the cup to the side so that it broke on a nearby wooden table. "---you guys came to investigate a murdered accomplice by yourselves and with no backup." 

"---I have back-up, you fuck. They're expecting us at fucking noon so---" 

"Mhm. Good information to have. Thank you for this."

  
The crowd moved forward in a mass, seeming not to mind the gunfire that came. Carlos egged them on with only a flick of his head, telling them to only _mind the nice suits._ Oliver, stuck amid the violence and coming riot, had no choice but to move with them.


	11. Docendo Discimus.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Docendo Discimus - We learn by Teaching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is an absolute behemoth of a chapter. But please understand this is going to be the last "lingering" chapter for a while. We are entering the main conflict of the story. I am hoping I can still keep up with the ending I had in mind but there are times when characters act on their own volition. This chapter exhibits one of those times.

He kept waiting for the calm before the storm. He was waiting for that impossible pin drop that made all the mounting tension actualized. Nowadays it seemed he was just living in a constant tempest. It certainly felt that way when he and Vaas stepped out of that hobble of a room and into the chaos of some new riot. Jason told himself he ought to be horrified, told himself that he should fear for the four privateers still desperately shooting and clawing their way from their attackers. But he didn't. To him, this was just another one of those random occurrences on Rook, another bullet point on a long list of tragedies. 

He realized he was not angry because these men were outgunned and inevitably going to die. He was angry because they had fucking interrupted him. When Vaas had torn out and seen all that new chaos, he was like a child on Christmas. Any other leader would have been appalled that his underlings acted without his blessing but Vaas looked positively delighted at the fact that there was violence so close by. He was gone. Just as quickly as he had been there, beneath Jason's body, he was gone. So rarely was Vaas ever in that previous malleable state where he could be reasoned and talked with. Now he would be back up on that high of excitement, that inconsolable breach of bloodlust. Jason knew this because he was the exact same way when it happened to him. He remembered now the reason he had gone to Vaas in the first place. Daisy's decree, Carlos's impartial suggestion. Yes, he was sent to Vaas to fetch back answers. 

_But I didn't want to reason with him, I wanted to-_ -

"---fuck him." His dick was in his hand, his hand pressed on the other side of the same shanty house Carlos had been in not twelve hours prior. He came but it wasn't satisfying, the action only being done to release the pent-up arousal that had come when he and Vaas were connected at the pelvic bone. His mind felt racey, overwhelmed and short circuited. A computer with an overheated motherboard. 

_Of course when I want something he's all fucking jelly at the knees. Can't stay awake, can't carry on a sentence unless it's to start another dumb ass argument or tell me I'm_ **_crying_ ** _. Oh, but when someone needs their ass kicked, when his stupid fucking men---_

Nevermind the fact that their little fling had been interrupted by Jason's own fractured psyche, the revelation that both he and Vaas had suffered the same humiliation ritual. Jason found that he could only harness the thoughts and reasonings of a jealous housewife. He thought then of Vaas in the front seat of their little getaway van, bound for the party house: 

_“I want you to ask yourself why you’re worrying about my fucking dick.”_

_“You fucking started it!”_

_“No, vato, no, I gave you a suggestion to your fucking problem, you start asking me about where my dick has been. Like a bad fucking whore. Puta. It’s okay-- you can have a fucking turn too --jealousy is very ugly.”_

He threw the ejaculate from his hand at two passing pirates who were laughing at him for being in such a vulnerable position. They screeched and ran away like two giddy teenagers, clearly eager to find out what all the ruckus was out front. 

_God, he hated Vaas._ He hated his smile, his voice, his dumb fucking mohawk. How quickly these feelings had soured from when he was pining after him not an hour or so prior. How wonderful it would be to slice his throat, _the same throat he had placed tentative open-mouthed kisses_ , and watch it bleed out. How exciting it would be to choke him senseless, watch those brilliant green eyes fade to grey and then white. _He needs to die. He needs to fucking die._ With this thought, Jason Brody went back to minding his own business. 

**\- X -**

Oliver stared at Jason from across a dirt floor as Daisy pressed a wet cloth to his split eyebrow and bruised over eye. He had told them about what happened to the best of his understanding. Even then, he found himself at a loss but what could he do? Mindlessly he found himself looking to Keith, Daisy and then back at Jason as if waiting for them to take some sort of lead. During this he couldn't help but steal a few glances at Jason, his supposed best friend he hadn't seen in over four days. He looked like shit, but it was quickly becoming his familiar look. It was only now that Oliver had the added benefit of a close proximity that he realized why. 

There were bite marks, t _wo in fac_ t, right at the upper corner of his neck. The smears of blood, which looked nearly identical to the ones he had seen on Vaas, were in all the correct places a lover would grace if they so happened to be suffering from a bloody nose. _Which Vaas clearly was._ He knew of Jason's little flings, his casualty toward sex and one night stands. There had even been a moment, a very brief lapse in drunken judgment, where they experimented in a broom closet Jason's freshman year of college. A pact was made there never to speak of it again but it kept coming back every now and then. A rumor would be spread about their closeness, a question raised about Jason’s insistence on taking Oliver everywhere, even amongst friends he didn’t really know. That was how he ended up on Rook afterall. _Jason had invited him to try out skydiving._ It was then that Oliver noticed a shine on Jason, an emerald green pendant on his chest. Jason looked up at Oliver, furrowed his brow, and mouthed the word _what?_ Obediently, Oliver bent his head back down and allowed Daisy to pine over his ruined upper lip. 

_But Jason would never, right? Not with the guy who started all this, the guy who killed--_

"---you hair looks really pretty when it’s down, Daisy." 

Daisy smiled at him as if he were her kid brother. _Peter, his name might have been. Maybe Patrick?_

"---so the pirates are stirring shit with the rich guys up north. Not a good sign." Keith breathed, hands stretched out against a wall and his back straight. "--those guys are armed to the fucking teeth." 

" So are we." Jason added, knees rocking back and forth against the sides of a chair he was riding backward. 

Keith threw Jason an ominous look, one of the many he was giving him these days, and looked back to Oliver. "---we need a plan to get outta here when things get hot." 

"-- _-um_." Oliver started, trying not to stare at Jason's red skin. "---I think Vaas mentioned they get ships here sometimes---" 

"Since when do _you_ talk to Vaas?" Jason snapped back. " I swear, ever since he gave you that fucking magician job, you've been up his ass." 

Oliver quite literally bit his tongue, thought about the very real possibility that Vaas had been up _Jason's_ ass not an hour prior. Daisy prevented him from going down harder, threw Jason a cautious, _mother knows best_ look. Jason ignored her. 

"---uh." Keith started. "---well, they can't be the only boats going out and in. Don't some of these people own personal property? Like those fucking seabirds, the two-seater planes---" 

For whatever the reason, Jason stood up at that, fists clenched like someone just lit a fire in his ass. Was the term _seabird_ one of his many trigger words? _Like Citra. Grant. Mom. Liza._ These were the no fly list of conversation starters. "---they don't allow those to fly here. _Vaas said-_ \--" 

"---so you got a chance to talk with Vaas too?" Oliver started, eyes still on the floor. He felt angry, terribly angry at Jason. "---what were you guys talking about?" 

Daisy looked uncertainly at Keith who opened his mouth and shut it again. Jason looked furious. 

"---I dunno _, Oliver._ What is it _you two_ talk about when you're asking him to watch out for me?" 

Oliver looked up at him. 

" The cellars have an echo to them." 

Oliver looked back down, Daisy undid his red bandana and wrung it inside a basin of water. How quickly the hot angry pit in his stomach subdued with a bit of confrontation. 

_That's because I'm not like Jason. I'm not like Vaas either. They are made of different material, a different breed of man. If Vaas was here he’d make Jason stop---_

The silence that rung now was so prominent it made his ears ring. Stupidly he wanted nothing more than anything to hear Jason laugh, to see him shirk his shoulders and say he was having them all on for a joke. It didn't happen, of course. The last time he had really heard Jason laugh, he was tied up in a basement with his back nearly skinned. He perished the thought, began to feel small and naked. He clasped his hands together, felt nothing because they were still clad in the bandages Vaas had given him. The sight of them just seemed to make Jason more angry. 

_Vaas again. You again. Fuck. Why are you just everywhere now?_

"---I think we need to consider the fact that there's no getting off this island." Jason said, pacing as his fists began to clench. 

"---so, what? We start our lives as jungle people. Break out the loincloths. Live like Tarzan in the fucking trees?" Keith started, running a hand through his hair. It was a little past his neck now, the startings of a beard prickling his chin. 

" Is there a better option?" Jason started, the tone of which made Keith flinch and take a step back. He was getting considerably frustrated though, tired of being talked and walked over. 

"---just cause you want to stay in this fucking--" 

" What did you say?" Jason was up and on Keith now, chest to chest. For a moment, Oliver could catch a glance of the man he had met at Jason's behest. The confident, flagrant banker, the same one who started a bar fight in Bangkok simply because someone had looked at him funny. He pushed Jason back, teeth grit. 

" I _said_ \---just because you want to stay in this fucking hell hole doesn't mean you have to drag us with you. Clearly you get off from being here with Va--" 

Just as Oliver had seen the old Keith appear, he had vanished again when Jason put his fist to his jaw. Immediately Keith went down, hands in front of him as Jason went in on his head. He apologized once or twice, whimpering sounds that were eclipsed by the intrusion of Daisy screaming. Ever the pacifist and protector, she had thrown herself between them. Oliver grabbed Jason from under the armpits but was headbutted in his already sore nose. When he went back, he saw stars, straightened himself long enough to focus on maneuvering Daisy from another one of Jason's coming fists. 

" Stop! _For fucks sake!_ Jason, stop!" Daisy was on Jason's back, practically being carried by him. Keith howled something awful, his hands going up defensively as he sheepishly began to skid across the floor and away from Jason. Between Oliver and Daisy, Jason was carried away from Keith who was now a quivering mess on the floor. He had resorted back to that primal child version of himself Oliver had seen upon entering the cave. He was in the fetal position, hands over a broken nose as he muttered desperate and sparse apologies. Daisy, on the other hand, looked furious. 

"I can't fucking take this anymore! I fucking won't!" She spat, pushing Jason so that he rocked on his heels and was forced to hold the wall for the support. 

“What? And I’m supposed to take it? I’m supposed to take you fucks sitting here, calling me crazy and acting like fucking leeches? I swear to fucking God, you’d be half way to the fucking ass end of nowhere if I hadn’t have picked up a gun!” 

" Enough!" Daisy was face to face with him now. "Stop it now!" 

"No! I won't fucking stop! Why the fuck do I have to be the one to get shit done around here?! Why do I have to be the fucking warrior, the protector and shit! So spoiled assholes like you--" He pointed at Keith. " Can get a free fucking ride to the states?! Do you know what I've done to get us here?! DO you have any idea how many people I've killed just to keep all of you alive!?" 

"No one asked you to do that, Jason." Daisy spat, low and dangerous. " Nobody here, living or dead, asked you to pick up a gun and start shooting." 

Jason paused, Keith was sobbing. 

"---what?" 

"I said no one asked for your help, Jason. No one asked you to sacrifice your sanity to be the fucking hero. You palled around with the warrior people. You were the one who started talking about revenge and getting even with the pirates. Stop acting like the rest of us owe you for---" 

Jason grabbed Daisy by the arms, an action that made Oliver stand but stall. Daisy looked straight in his eyes, fury hot and terrible in her glare. "---you're no better than them now, you know that? You've sunk to their fucking level and you like it--" 

“---you let her go, man. Just--” 

At that something awakened in Keith, a switch that sent electricity into his spine. Though his eyes were still wet, though his shoulders concaved into a boyish sag, Oliver could see trace amounts of the wall street banker from that Bangkok bar. The smooth forehead, now wrinkled with a month’s worth of worry, laden itself with sweat. 

Keith stood between them, one hand going to separate their two bodies as if in a barrier. “--you’re fucking problem is with me, right? C’mon, just--” 

“ I’m not the fucking enemy here, Keith.” Jason spat, releasing Daisy and returning to Keith. Oliver noted how electric the reaction was, magnets pulling in tandem. "---I'm not some fucking monster. I’m not---I’m not like them--” 

Keith blanched, eased Daisy behind himself as she crumpled inward and into his back like the spare kindlings of a fire. “---we’ve all changed, man---” 

He was saying this but both Keith and Daisy were poised as if they were rooming with a rabid animal. Daisy behind Keith, Keith with one hand raised as if ready to catch a fist. Below his eye, a red and angry mark was starting to darken where Jason had hit him last. In a night’s time, it would be black eye.

_They’re scared of them._ Oliver thought. _I am too. I’m terrified of my best friend, oh god._

“---no.” Jason muttered, fists clenched, head down. “---not like I’ve changed. I think---I think---” He stammered, looked to Daisy who looked like she smelt something past its expiration date. “---it’s different. For me, it’s different---” 

Keith looked visibly hurt. “---not like _you’ve_ changed. Jason do you have--- _any idea-_ \--” He laughed, tears springing in his eyes. It was eerie, this smile ladened with tears. “---Jason, you went willingly. You changed yourself willingly. _Man,_ what I wouldn’t fucking give---” 

Two knuckles wrapped on an already open door, Carlos standing in the doorway with one hand pocketed. He grinned at them, as if he’d just caught two frivolous teenagers kissing. 

“ Time to chat? Terribly sorry to interrupt.” 

**\- X -**

They lived like rats. Rats piled high amongst the desecration of their own shit, rodents upon the dozen. It wasn't exactly rare to see men sleep side by side, shoulder to shoulder like sardines in a tin. Some of them even would sleep in shifts, some taking chances for bed rest rather than a plain compress made out of banana leaves. These things, these deprivations, they didn't bother Vaas. For he had grown accustomed to a life without comfort for a long time. He had a bed, sure, but how many nights had Citra chosen to sleep in her blessed temple? How many times had he, wary of all the eyeballs that always followed her, slept hand over head on her bedside as the incense dwindled into a smolder? Too many to count, _surely_ , much too many to really create a complaint over. But you heard it every now and then, the soft and somber complaints of a middle class trophy boy who'd come here for his jollies.

_What I would give to be in my bed back home_.

_I stayed at a hotel once that had such and such._

The list was endless. 

It made him wonder all the more about Jason Brody. Jason, who he had learned had studied at a four year and roomed with the Carswell gringo. Jason who would almost always post on social media about this bed and breakfast at this far off foreign location. Sometimes they were American places but most times they weren't. Jason bent and juxtaposed against the leaning tower of Pisa. Riley, looking much younger, crawling away from his older brother as he mimed shoving the giant building down his ass. Jason in a dumb fucking turtle neck kissing Liza in front of the Eiffel tower, the filter making them look like something out of classic Hollywood. You never had to look far to see how he paid for things. 

_"Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Snow for the hookup."_

_"Carswell best friend hookup came in again! ;)"_

He was a regular social media whore. Painfully flagrant with his location and whereabouts at all hours of the fucking day. It's a wonder Volker's little group of hellraisers were the first to catch him. Even so, one had to wonder what he was actually like. Behind all the peace signs and midjump stills, you would never hear anything about a job or a fucking passion project in the make. Everyone else his age would be on about a new engagement, a raise or a new fucking dog. All Jason ever seemed to talk about was measurements. 

_I skydived from this height!_

_I'm in a plane that is this feet off the ground!_

_Guess how many fucking miles I ran today!_

And on and on. One post stuck out in particular, the one that saved the cellphone that held it from being chucked into the pacific. 

_Happy fifty-fifth birthday to the sweetest gal I know. Love you, mom._

A picture of Jason standing next to a woman who looked like she should be teaching an art class. Blonde hair fried off her scalp, diamond-shaped glasses, and a pair of acid fade jeans. Up until this point, she had been spared the humiliation of one of their bag and drop cases. The ransom and switch case. But he had been given word that Hoyt and the others had been using the youngest Brody to shake some coins from her tree. He was effective because he was the only of the three brothers that would immediately start crying. Nevermind the fact that Momma Brody would be getting this call right before Riley was set to fly out to a third world country.

_Oh please. Oh god---my baby. Not my baby. Riley, honey---_

They always said that. _My baby, my baby._ Never mind that the majority of the people who came here were fully grown men trying to fuck girls twice younger than them. Nevermind that no one brought these _babies_ here, no one coaxed them.

_But yes, your poor baby. Poor baby we caught spiking the drinks at the club we plucked him from. Poor baby looking to come here for blood diamonds and sex slaves with no english._

_Poor babies._

_Poor babies._

But something about seeing Jason with his mother set something off in Vaas. It wasn't anger, not outright. It was more of disquiet, a realization that Jason Brody was quite possibly one of the most shallow forms of individuals out there. He looked at the picture once more, studied the lazy, lopsided grin he had never seen Jason wear in person. 

_I have everything back home, everything I could want. But let me come to your fucking country and take what you got too._

Mindlessly, he wondered what compelled people like Jason to ever fucking leave their mothers. You could always tell the Madonna types from the Marilyns. The moms who bought their kids shit and the moms who made them pay for it all through an allowance. Mrs. Brody just looked like someone who'd make you put on a sweater. A sad face, one that had worry lines forever engraved at the spout of her eyes but she still smiled. Vaas was quite unceremoniously reminded of how much his own mother was the opposite. He and Citra had been convinced she was immortal because she never seemed to fucking age. Not that they saw her often. She was too busy being fawned over by her subjects. When she did pay them mind, she'd preface orders by stating _boy or girl._

_Where is the boy?_

_Girl, do this--_

_Boy, how dare you do this---_

_Girl, this is no way to behave--_

_The boy is just like its father, impossible to tame._

She was a snake of a woman, someone who treated both her children as if they were the malignant tumors her surgeons had removed from her body. He remembered when Citra came of age, seeing their mother laid down on that stone spread eagle and calm. He always wished that he would have been the one to do it. He had watched none the less, watched her bleed out and die without ever screaming or trying to escape. Citra seemed perplexed by it, her smooth forehead creased by lines of worry and strain. Vaas, on the other hand, had felt peace. He could remember being no older than ten, lacing his fingers together and bowing his head as they all began to chant. 

_Finally._ He thought. _The evil is gone._

He was partially thankful for this interruption of his thoughts. The door slamming behind Jason Brody was almost prophetic. Carlos had been given strict orders to leave them in peace. _Send the white boy alone_ , he had said. Very specific. But Carlos had this horrible tendency to linger. Sometimes it would be a harsh hand on your arm, a grim little handshake. Whatever it was, _it was there._ That pensive, almost floundering reminder that he was in fact, still an important player in the game. _Here I am_ . His presence said. _You can't count me out. You see me. I'm important too._

" I can trust you boys to play nicely while I get our friends ready--"

" Shut the fuck up." Vaas cut him off, filed a pill down into a powder beneath the keen edge of a credit card. Funny, he thought, _this is my first time I ever holding one._ "---always fucking talking. Filling the fucking spaces and shit--” 

His mind blanched, started reeling and pulling in directions he couldn't really follow. His vision blurred a bit but stopped when he squeezed his eyes shut and open again. He tried to remember what he had taken before this, couldn’t recall. 

Carlos laughed then and Vaas had to suppress the urge to throw something at him. Unfortunately, he had nothing. Vaas was behind a crate of something labeled explosive, he sat cross legged beside it as he snorted the substance up one nostril. Carlos pushed Jason in forward with one hand to his back, an action that made the man look juvenile and impressionable. 

“ I’ll ready the others. Still got to pick our lucky winner--” Carlos said, all that false sweetness drained off his voice as he shut the door. Vaas found himself relieved at this return to normality. He hated when Carlos attempted to coddle him. In his own banal way, Carlos had a way of over coaxing. If he wanted something from you, suddenly there were no lengths to which he wouldn't stretch. Home Cooked meals, private visits in the clinic, _just to check you out._ He acted as if you were someone supremely special, someone of value. That's how it was when Vaas had first arrived here anyway. Right up until he inevitably told him that _no, he didn't know the exact names and locations of the warriors who killed his son._ Suddenly their relationship was strictly business. Suddenly Vaas was tending to his own stitches, navigating his own way around this strange world of money and drugs. 

By the looks of Jason, he had not fully realized that Carlos had a second face. For he was looking back at that closed door as if it had shut right in his back. How eery it was that Jason kept falling into the same patterns Vaas did. Citra, to Hoyt to Carlos and then--- _down here, maybe. Down underneath a mountain of cocaine and molly._

"---why am I here?" Jason started, putting on a brave face but not pointing it to Vaas. He looked terribly rigid standing there, fists clenched and back straightening. It was as if he were waiting for Vaas to start shooting him, the convicted waiting for the fucking firing squad. 

"Fucking brunch." Vaas replied, slipping a finger under his gums. The taste was horrible, bitter but the tingling sensation was something swell. Jason finally looked up at him, back down again. The blood that still marked the side of his face looked like war paint, the kinds of markings you'd see the warriors dawn right when they were going to burn a body. He realized then that the correlation would be entirely lost on Jason. Jason had only known Rakyat culture as a second passenger, a student crashing a course. Vaas wasn't sure if that made him feel angry or comforted. 

"---I'm fucking serious, Vaas. I don't have time for this---" 

" I'm sorry, boss. You have a plane to catch, yeah? Gonna miss your fucking flight?" 

Jason's teeth clicked as they shut, he looked away then back again. Inwardly, Vaas tried to imagine what someone like Paolo was to him. There had to come a time when Jason stopped assuming everyone who offered him help was doing it out of pure charity. That is after all, how Citra had found him. That was how Carlos did after that. He had this horrible tendency to rely on people. Jason Brody didn't have a personality. Not a genuine one at least, he became what was needed of him. A social chameleon, watch him _change from college frap boy back into an aimless deadbeat boyfriend._

"---fuck you, Vaas." 

" Your limited vocabulary speaks fucking volumes, Jason. _Fuck me, fuck this._ It's like---you want to fucking express yourself, yeah? But the language, the fucking intelligence is not there---" 

"---you say fuck every fucking sentence, Vaas. You said fuck like five times just now." 

As if some written agreement had been signed, they said no more on this. It was a return to power, he was sure. _I poke at three of his flaws, he pokes at two of mine. Then we go back to basics, back to what we came here for._ Vaas was relieved that Jason was not carrying the conversation further, only standing there like a soldier to attention. Anyone else would have expected to continue the spat, _anyone else would be different_. 

" I have something that's going to be very, very interesting for you, Jason." Vaas said suddenly, standing to his full height. "A fucking present." 

He led Jason toward what he assumed the poor fuck who lived here thought was a master bedroom. There was a mattress, twinsized, tucked disturbingly in the corner. Above them there were two or three pinup posters all crass in fifties regalia, the most prominent of which was a blonde cupping her ass over a witch's broom. _Come fly with me!_ Her caption said, the words fading from their former silver print. Jason, above everything, looked at this image. Not because he was particularly interested, _Vaas was sure_ , but because he needed to be distracted. Distracted because he was once again, willingly following his supposed enemy into an intimate space. 

_This way he looks deliriously straight, what happens next is simply because I am evil and keep making him do evil things. Just like Citra made him kill all those men, I make him depraved. It is easier this way, it makes it possible for him to tell himself that the difference between us is that I act on impulse and he acts on necessity. A sad way to live, it must be painful. We only halfway fucked because I, like everyone else, forced him to do it. He's fucking precious, really. He's adorable._

" So this is how you do it. You're going to kill me in a fucking shack." Jason grumbled. 

Vaas honestly could not tell if that statement was supposed to be witty or observational. Jason had the most bizarre form of speaking, delivering sentences of disgust in a tone that was flat and noncommittal. He was dimly aware this was sarcasm, a flippant practice some people choose as a defense mechanism. He realized he had little to no knowledge of the propriety of these sorts of conversations, it made him once again reflect on how sheltered a life he had lived up into this point. Vaas’s childhood culture, which had been so direct and purposeful was a shocking contrast to Jason's. He realized he had many questions he would like to ask Jason, questions Jason would no doubt find insult in answering.

_How often do you grocery shop?_

_What's it like to live in a city?_

_Have you seen snow?_

Silly thoughts, noncommittal impulses. He swept them under the rug, decided then that it would be best to get to what he knew best. Strong, unwavering direction. 

  
  


"---no, no, no, Jason please. You are going to go out like fucking Lassie. Green pastures, a nice walk by the lake. I promise you, it will be very romantic." 

Jason hummed, tilted his chin upward and looked toward the bed. _Vaas had given him the correct response. He had taken this as some sort of verbal foreplay._ Vaas thought of the old women in his childhood village, the ones who would come bare-breasted and weeping to leave dried fruits and flowers at the feet of his sister. _The oracle has been fed, the gods are pleased._ Jason wavered, moved toward the bed, and stopped. Looked to Vaas for permission. It was denied. 

"---why am I here?" 

Vaas smiled at him, laced his fingers over one raised knee and took time in answering. 

“ We have a job for you, amigo. Let’s call it a--” _Don’t quote the fucking godfather_. “--an offer you can’t refuse.” 

Jason’s turn to smile. On his face the expression looked serpentine and sly, bathed in oil. “---so we’re making offers now? I thought this entire _business_ of yours was done by force. ” 

“Nothing in life is done by force, Jason. We make our own fucking decisions, choose our own bullshit paths. You just happened to walk in on this one. Your fault, mi dulce. Not a smart move.” 

Jason’s smile dropped, his frown returning. Vaas liked this better. When Jason was jovial, when he was happy, he felt distant, almost unattainable. That aspect of Jason’s personality, the one he had seen preserved in all those videos, it would forever be barred from him. They could never be friendly, not in a common way at least. Any smile Jason gave him was false, fickle, a ploy to get something out of him. _Like everyone else._ He needed no coaxing or permission to continue.

“ You’re going to be my new commander.” 

“---commander?” 

“ Si, si. Did you see what Carlos fucking did with my last one? Not a pretty sight, especially when I’m just getting up in the fucking morning. The service here really is shit. ” 

“---the privateers? You want me to become a privateer?” 

“--hmm. Think smaller, amigo. I want you to play pretend, play fucking make believe. You’re good at that, no? You’re a fucking _fantastic_ liar.” Vaas grinned, beamed when he realized that Jason wasn’t faltering as he drew closer to him. They were face to face now, Jason’s eyes looking flat and cruel as they became framed by narrowing eyebrows . Vaas brought his hands in front of Jason’s forehead, ran his fingers through the strands so that his hair laid flat against his scalp. He tried to picture the late and great Marshal Patt, the very one that now lied scalped and burning in a fire pit. It was difficult. Jason’s features were too fine, too pronounced. While Marshall looked uncannily like the over bred bulldogs you’d find in a pedigree, Jason looked more like the grinning poster children of the marketing generation. _Slender, defined, carved from stone._ These were words that grazed softly upon the word handsome, an attractiveness that mixes the rugged wild nature of the all American with the carefree buoyancy of the male fuck toy. 

_He would have sold well. God, he would have made Volker a fucking fortune._

"---and what's in it for me?" Jason forced his head forward, Vaas's hands sliding down from his scalp as the hair inevitably stood back up. They stood like that for a moment, foreheads nearly touching. _Waiting, waiting for someone to falter, to break the contact._

" And what do you fucking want, Jason?" Vaas asked, letting his hands fall from the hook of Jason's shoulder. "What fucking payment would suffice?" 

"For Volker? _Everything_."

Vaas grinned. "I wasn't giving him to you, Jason. You're getting too cocky, my friend, too fucking greedy." 

"---so you get him? You get to fucking kill him? How is _that_ fair?"

" Life isn't fucking fair, Snow White. I swear, I've taught you this lesson before, once, twice maybe even three fucking times--" Vaas trailed off, broke away to fetch the cigar that rested in the nightstand across the way, Jason followed him. 

"I could do it. You know I could." 

Vaas hummed, gave Jason the much-needed affirmation that he was being listened to. Like a teacher tending to the well eager student, he didn’t want to discourage the interest in learning. He looked for the cigar, found only poorly rolled blunts the previous inhabitants had saved for a special occasion. He took one, studied it. Put it back. 

" And wouldn't that be the ultimate hard-on for you. Jason Brody the fucking hero, the fucking savior." 

Jason gave a rather unnatural pause, his footsteps slow and methodical. He took the blunt Vaas had put back. "---you know where Riley is?" 

" When the fuck did I say that?" 

"---you fucking sold him." 

"No, I put him on the fucking truck and closed the door. I see no profits from white ass." 

Jason blanched, stuck the joint between his teeth despite having no lighter. He no doubt thought Vaas was lying, spinning a yarn to get Jason to point A to B. However, this wasn't the case. To Vaas, Riley Brody was just another member of the ever-growing lost boys club. He had no want or reason to trail their whereabouts once they were gone. They were ghosts that passed by frosted windows, boys masquerading as men. Somewhere, deep within himself, he felt a pity for them. A pity that empathized itself with mice cut nearly in half in their traps. 

_Poor thing. It should know better. Why doesn't it know how the world works?_

"---Volker would know where Riley is." 

" If he kept his fucking serial number. Though word is he might be calling your mama for ransom. If he’s in house, well, that’s to be determined--" 

Just like that Jason was on him, grabbing the scruff of his shirt and forcing their eyes to meet. Vaas took the joint that was clenched between Jason's teeth and put it between his own. 

" Touchy, touchy, Jason." He started, grinning and swerving the cigarette to one side. "We haven't even gotten fucking started yet, amigo _. Party runs late._ " 

"---I want my brother back." 

" And I want a fucking movie theater and a new convertible. Life isn't fucking fair, again, I'm repeating myself." Vaas shirked out of Jason's grip, pawed with the matches that were still lying loose in one pocket. "---now, if you want my advice, Jason. Not that your dumbass is going to take it. I'd just be happy with your little band of fuckups, the blonde puta and Buck's pet." 

"---they're not--" 

"Not what? Family? Jason, family is your anchor when you're the fucking titanic. Blood doesn't mean shit." 

"---no, they're not---they're not--" Jason trailed off, ran a hand through his hair. "---they're not my people." 

Faintly Vaas could recall their little stint out by the fire pit, the exhaust of burning human fat and meat. _These aren't your people, they were hardly ever mine._ Vaas lit the match on the brunt edge of the dresser, brought the light to the blunt and then passed it to Jason who took it graciously. 

_This is what understanding must feel like, a true mutual agreement._

" I see." Vaas trailed, watched as Jason looked at the blunt as if it were a green light across the ocean. "They're not my fucking people either. They're dead weight, a fucking nuisance. I kept them for you, _you know_ , a fucking present." 

"I know." Jason started, looking grave and distant. "---but I don't want that anymore. I don't want that--" 

What _that_ really meant, Vaas couldn't be entirely sure. He could make assumptions, draw blind conclusions but the true answer relied in Jason’s ability to communicate. Again, this was a first for him. Taking an interest in what someone has to fucking say. He halfway wished Jason would grow out of this awkward transition phase, this delirious go between from heaven and hell. The true enlightenment comes when he realized there was no such thing. _The world is a diagonal, we are the balancing point._ Jason finally brought the joint to his lips, inhaled softly and slowly as the smoke tumbled from his nostrils like a dragon's snout. Vaas was now keenly interested, tilted his head to the rhythmic clicking sound of Jason's brain working overtime. 

" Then what the fuck do you want?" 

"---everything." Jason said, looking distant and pensive. "---I think I just want everything." 

Vaas grinned, felt something like excitement. A feeling he hadn't truly felt in a long time. 

"---a fantastic fucking start." Vaas replied. 

  
  


**-X -**

From what he could understand, their window of opportunity was constantly shrinking. The entire operation was surprisingly thorough, the pieces of each step falling into place like the extensive players on a chessboard. They had eyes in many privateer compounds, men who acted as the figureheads of their respective sections of the island and siphoned off money and resources back to Vaas. Every fortnight or so, Volker would grace them with about a baker's dozen of fresh blood, recruits from every which corner of the world. These men, in turn, would be indoctrinated with the ideas of revolution. Jason was surprised, horrified, almost. This all coming from the men who lived in shacks and dressed in cargo pants and tank tops. His job was simple. He was to show up as the missing white boy who just so happened to lead a team out to Vaas’s compound, he was to erase any air of suspicion. He hated that, wanted something more.

"---so, what's my job?" Jason asked, watching Vaas from eye level. He had sat himself atop a crate, Jason stood before him with his hands behind his back. He was wrestling with some gel and a fine-toothed comb, trying and failing to get Jason's hair to slick back like the dearly departed commander's. 

" Sit and look pretty." Vaas had said, eyebrows narrowing in concentration. " Papi will handle the rest." 

"---papi." Jason snorted, Vaas shot him a dangerous look and the exchange for that ill-fated conversation ended. Vaas continued to comb his hair. 

"---what about Paolo?" 

" What about him?" 

"---you said he was telling Hoyt about me." 

"No, I said _Fransico_ was fucking getting ready to. You see, you never fucking listen, Jason. It's always jumping to conclusions with you." 

Jason paused, thought about the brief moment in time where he had actually considered leaving with Paolo on that two-seater. The thought was merely romantic now, a nice daydream he had had years ago. He paused, gave Vaas the silence he needed to continue. 

"---Fransico was bartering for information, Jason. Trying to sell your location to the highest bidder."

"---what?" 

"You know you have a fucking bounty, right? Privateers have crunched the numbers in, pooled shit together. There's the bounty from Volker, then there's the bounty for the fuckers who feel game enough to catch you. Scrawny fucks like Paolo and Fransico never get to see the big prize money, but they at least get a piece of the pie by pointing the big guns in the right direction. It's trickle down economics, no? Capitalism in small, bite-size fucking pieces." 

  
  


"--and Fransico? How do we know he's not ratting us out right now?"

Vaas smoothed a rather prominent edge back into the glued down mass that was now Jason's hair. He tilted his head, looked at Jason as if he were a muralist adding the final layer of paint. 

"---do you honestly think if Volker had any fucking reason to believe that we'd axed one of his shitty lap dogs he'd just send four men?" 

Jason paused, wondered why he hadn't thought of that before. 

"---they were here for me." 

Vaas adjusted the collar of the yellow coat, looked at Jason with enough scrutiny to make him feel self conscious. He had a sudden image of Paolo flying over the pacific in a yellow-painted two-seater. Behind him, in the space he had promised Jason, was a fat pile of dollar bills. His stomach felt heavy, his fists clenching and unclenching. _He had been sold twice._

"---what if he comes back?" 

"He won't," Vaas said

"---How the fuck do you know that?" 

Vaas seemed to contemplate this. "---because I took care of it. I'm very protective of my things." 

Jason knew better than to press the issue further, he turned to face himself in the mirror. This was the third time this month he didn't recognize himself. The first had been in Bangkok, his first time seeing himself on ecstasy. His face had been melted and pinkish then, looking like a boardwalk sketch. The second had been in a pool of standing water, he had just slaughtered a pig and eaten the flesh halfway raw. Now he found he looked startlingly like Keith. Well, how Keith used to look. Polished, taken care of. Things he realized he never would be again. His job now was to lull Volker into a false sense of security, make him easy prey. Behind him, he could see Vaas. He was sitting cross legged because he sat no other way. His hands were to his chin, looking at Jason as if he were something to eat. Their eyes met. 

"---I figured how you could pay me back for this. For playing dress up for you--" 

Vaas said nothing, appeared to know what Jason was going to say before he even thought of it. He turned to face him, looked at him with all the sternness he could muster. 

"---you know why she did it, right?" 

The recognition in Vaas's eyes told Jason that he didn't need to elaborate. 

"---I need to just---I need to know." He drew closer, decided to look back at the pinups on the wall instead of Vaas. "---I need to know why she killed Liza and why--" 

He didn't want to say _why she tortured me_. It would bring too many memories, too many nightmares. In truth, he didn't know how to feel about Citra anymore. Sometimes it was undeniable affection, worship. Other times it was seething hatred, and anger that burnt in his chest like a gaslight. Most times, times like this, it was a deep and unmistakable hurt. An emptiness, a crevice long and deep. 

"---I need to know what I did wrong." 

There was a silence, a palatable quiet that was neither awkward or comforting. When he looked back at Vaas he was halfway grateful there wasn't a shred of pity there. Pity would make him feel irrelevant, foolish, small. What was there in Vaas's face was unmistakable intrigue, a look that said he was about to make a leap of faith. 

"---why?" Vaas asked.

"---why, what?" 

"Why do you need to know?"

Jason paused, reflected a bit. "---I don't fucking know, closure?" 

" And then what?" 

Jason took another moment, reflected on his thoughts and composure as if they were subject headers in a textbook. 

"---I don't know, I move on. Fucking get over it." 

Vaas swiveled his mouth to one side, furrowed his brow. "---but your back's still a fucked up mess, right? It's there, it'll fucking fester. There is no moving on from her, not really. She punishes you, you wise the fuck up, you leave. There is no in between. There is nothing you fucking learn from it." 

Jason stared at Vaas for a long time, chose carefully before he spoke. "---then what do I do?" 

Vaas shrugged, stood to his full height then stretched. When he did, there was a small strip of his abdomen that was exposed. Jason then realized the trauma and scarring there was far more extensive than he had first felt. Faded, intricate patterns. Hours of abuse. 

_What in the world happened to you?_

Jason repeated the question. "---what should I do?" 

" How the fuck should I know? " Vaas replied.


	12. Sorella.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorella (italian) - Sister.

She had always hated men.  _ Men and their pride, men and their folly.  _ She thought this as she pressed the heel of her bare foot deeper into a yielding tailbone. The man squirmed, the pattern of the stone stippling into the back of his neck like raw stubble. 

"---you speak English." 

Not a question or observation, but a command. Almost as if Citra's will would make it so. The scrawny, pale-faced heretic looked up at her from over his shoulder. His hair, which had once been raven-colored, had been tinged blonde by a few tussles in the dirt and sand. Though he was obviously uncomfortable, he remained stationary and flaccid. There was an air to him that would suggest dignity, a grace that said he was holding fast to some vague form of pride. A laughable idea for someone of his affiliation. He wore the same garb as the infidels. The color red was forever ruined for her now. No longer was it the color of sunsets or sweet berries. No, it was the color of infection, the color of colonization. She hadn't seen her brother in nearly three years but she knew he wore it. 

"---I speak English. Si, mia signora. My name is---" 

" I did not ask this." She retorted, throwing up a hand in disgust. The language, the accent, it sounded vaguely of her brother's. But it was too sweet, too rhythmic. Not Spanish but a close cousin. Even now she was thinking of the questions she would formulate to ask Vaas. She would ask him for clarification. For this was the way it had always been. She knew of the world of the skies, he knew the below. What the stars could not tell her, her brother would. He who knew how to hunt, what stones to strike for a fire. Yes, Vaas would know. Vaas who was allowed to do things like read and look at maps. Vaas who knew of the world beyond their little corner of it. Vaas who had gotten the chance to be an actual person.  _ Not an oracle. Not a divine corpse like their mother.  _ A person. A person with thoughts and needs. Wants. Wants that had a fulfillment.

"---you will tell me now who sent you." 

" No one sent me, signora.” He said this in a calm, almost flippant demeanor. His eyes, although red from poor rest, were cool and full of redress. It was as if this was all an inconvenience, a problem that would soon be resolving itself. Citra thought to herself that this simply wouldn't do. Fear, at least in gradual amounts, was the only language these people understood. They were not like the Rakyat who could be bartered with by the intricacy of language. There was no history in the pirates, no set loyalty between brothers and men. Even more so she had the sense that this man hadn't the right mind to fear her much less respect her. She knew of the pirate's treatment of women, their hiring of their fallen village girls as prostitutes. To them, a woman was a warm crevice in which to enter. A mouth to fuck, a belly to plant an abandoned seed. Her old girlhood anxieties, the same ones that made her wish for broader shoulders and a flatter chest, came resurging to her like a high tide. These feelings made her feel _ human. _ She swallowed them, palmed the ceremonial blade in her hand and recalled how much she loathed the slick of human blood. 

She looked then to Dennis who was standing not a few paces away. He was always so close, always watching her with eyes that carried neither lust or intrigue. Dennis looked at her the same way children might look upon a star they are set to wish upon. With awe, staying at the humble distance that kept one from burning.  _ The thing I am looking at is not of this world, it is not for me. _ Sometimes she wished he would look at her the way Jason used to. He was not quaint with his wanting of her but at the very least he saw her as something tangible. Vaas had been very much the same, his eyes always falling upon her as something comforting and familiar. 

_ I am powerful, yes. But I am other things too. I move the wind through the trees, I pull the shore from the sand. But I also grow hungry, when my skin is wet I grow cold. I exist in this world as well as the next.  _

"---you said it was Vaas on the radio. Vaas sent him to us."

"Yes, my goddess. He---he said--” Dennis cleared his throat, organized a more polite way of saying what was actually said: 

_ You tell that bitch I have a present for her. It's wearing red, taking a boat leaving the south island. This one's coming fucking gift wrapped, from me to her.  _

  
  
  


"I think there has been a misunderstanding, Citra. If you would be so kind--” 

" YOU DARE SPEAK HER NAME--" Dennis bellowed this, a mantra that was excused by a dismissive wave of Citra’s hand. The pirate, disgruntled by the ringing the voice left in his ears, looked upon Citra with an impartial expression of interest. 

" Let **_it_ ** speak. _ It _ interests me." She said but not truthfully. She just hated the way Dennis liked to carry on. It was a warrior's place to be stoic, passionless. Dennis would get fired up into a frenzy, a fivor that was supposed to be saved only for the battle. Their superstitions and tales were not meant to be spoken in words of erraticism or ecstasy. There were times Dennis was an embarrassment but what was she to do? She lost men every day. Probably lost some just getting this new prisoner. 

"---I was trying to escape the pirates. Being a prisoner, myself I---" 

" I have no patience for liars---" She forced a hand over his mouth, released it when the mixture of perspiration and tears touching her skin began to disgust her. “ You will either use your tongue to speak the truth or I will cut it out.” 

The pirate considered her with an air of apprehension, the first she had ever seen on him. It was as if he was realizing that he had well and truly found a foe worth fighting. No doubt he had been lambasted with stories about the natives here, lies that portrayed her people as apes stuck up in trees. Yes, she liked the way he was looking at her now. He looked her in the eye. There was still no respect but she could detect that he understood the dynamics of power here, the natural order of things. 

“---I was escaping back to the South.” He replied, eyes falling upon Citra’s blade with the scantest hint of apprehension. 

Citra tilted her head to one side, an action she often saw mothers give when they were about to chide an unruly child. “Back to Volker. You were leaving the pirates to return to Volker.”

“We are not one in the same, Citra. We serve the same cause but our affiliations are different.” 

_ He thinks I’m stupid, he thinks I do not know the difference between employer and employee. By the gods, you are all the same. Pig-headed, boastful little--- _

On the outside it looked like she was deep in consideration, listening attentively with the regard of a caretaker on an invalid. As much as she despised men she knew how to work them, how to lull them into a false sense of security. For inside every man lives the despondent child he once was, a child who craves the comfort his mother stopped giving him once he left her breast. Men, regardless of the culture, were walking vacuums of their lost childhood. 

“---and Vaas told us you were coming to punish you.” She could only guess.

The pirate smiled at that. It wasn’t a wicked smile, not a spiteful one either. It was the smile of the doctor about to break bad news, the lookout who has just sounded the alarm for intruders.

“---he had already punished me, cara mia. Very well, in fact. I’m here as punishment for  _ you. _ ” 

Citra tried not to let the confusion surface on her features but she could already feel the upset in the pit of her stomach. Horribly, almost through vision, she knew what he was going to say before he said it. 

“---the call from Vaas. It came from one of our own communicators, yes?” 

“ The same one you gave to Jason Brody.” 

For a moment all was silent save for the shifting of Dennis’s bare feet. He wanted to come closer, wanted to implant himself in the drama of it all because that’s just how entitled he was. Citra drew closer on the lost pirate, brought herself upon her knees. 

“---Jason Brody lives?” 

The pirate stared at her for a long time, ran his tongue over his sweat speckled upper lip. 

“I am in no position to be giving out information for free, my goddess. You understand that I--” 

“I understand you’re not in a position to keep it to yourself.” She intervened, bringing the blade to the pirate’s throat and resting it in the hook of his collar bone. 

“ I could be useful to you, Citra.” 

“ The same way you were useful to Hoyt. You know no loyalty. Even amongst rats, you choose to be a mouse.” 

“ And what choice did I have?” His tone was sharp and accusatory, it made Citra jump to attention. “We are all not born into greatness as you were. Yes, my brother could attest to this if Vaas would have let him live long enough to do so--” He stopped when the sharp edge of the blade raised up to his adam’s apple. Inwardly Citra wondered how much more she would have to hear the same story.    
  


_ Vaas killed my brother. Please help me. God, I’ll do anything.  _

“ I do not have to be your enemy, cara mia. We are one in the same. I too have lost a brother to Volker. I lost my--” 

He didn’t get to finish. The sharp edge of the blade slid over the exposed skin with enough dexterity to rival the serpent through grass. His eyes began to bulge, his mouth forming an archaic grimace that made him look as if he were in the throes of a cough. His chest rose, fell back down again when his restraints began to tighten. What was most troubling of the sight was that he did not look surprised, only pained. As if the only thing that worried him about death was the short discomfort that would proceed it. 

" We no longer entertain the pleas of outsiders." She replied, flicking away the blade in a touch of disgust. She would have been quite happy to sit there and watch him bleed out, to idle and whisper sweet nothings in his ear as death took its time in coming. But Dennis was there.  _ Dennis was always there.  _

"---Jason Brody lives." Dennis seethed. 

" You will leave me." 

"---Citra we must make plans to---" 

"You will do as I say and leave. We act when the time is right." 

"---but Citra---" 

" You must not realize who you are speaking to, you must have forgotten who I am. You will leave this temple or you will be going the same way he did. Leave now." 

Dennis relented, bowing with each step he took backward. And with his leaving, with his final departure, she felt herself finally calm. 

It was in these moments that she truly felt herself a goddess. Those prime, quiet moments between murder and sacrifice. Even now, the former pirate was starting to wire down to a slow amble. Like a pig laden for slaughter, he began his death throws in a preamble. This way and that, a jerk of spasming muscle and relenting pressure. Now, the world made sense, the life and death process an ineffectual close. 

"---you are all the same." She hadn't realized she was speaking out loud. The dying man must have heard her though, he trained his eyes to hers. Now, she realized they were truly equals. Both alive and dead. 

_ Men are so cruel. _

The only reason she could think of Vaas keeping Jason alive was to torment her. For he had always been like that.  _ Vile. _ Yes, there was a stint in their childhood where she saw in him a form of reprieve. She, a woman at the age of eleven, her dagger deep in her mother's breast. Him, no higher than the tide, coming to her with open arms and soft cheeks. 

_ It's alright _ . He used to say, the look of him darling and warm. This was how she liked to remember him. Back when he was smaller than her, back when if she grew tired of him, she could pick him up and put him behind some door. And he would wait there. He would wait there in patience until she decided he was worth her time again. It all started when he learned the dreadful word no. Suddenly it was too much to ask of him to stay by her bedside. Suddenly he had to learn how to swim, how to fish and hunt. She was reminded of how she was born his inferior _. The cursed sex, wretched woman. _ Yes, she was an oracle now but what would happen when she finally passed on that title? Here, where the age of sixteen was ripe for children. Here where every time she declined to choose her destined partner, one would be inevitably chosen for her. What would become of Vaas when she fulfilled her cosmic duty? When she too bore the sacred son and daughter to replace them?

_ He'll go off and explore. He will grow old, he will fall in love. He will live a normal life.  _

That was why she decided to even the playing field. This was why she had chosen her warrior as she did. Yes, Vaas would die before her but they would be together. Together in a crypt somewhere, decaying into each other until their ashes mixed. He would love no one else. They would live on in another, a mixture of their best parts. A warrior, a man, a son, a leader. And how horrified Vaas had looked when she announced who she wanted as ariki at their equinox ceremony. He looked at her as if she had grown talons, had slunk away from her as she drew near. In fact, he looked just as this dying man did. Lost, confused, looking for an impossible way out. 

_ It's not fair. It's not fair.  _

Her face was impartial as she watched this man's breathing rasp to a wheeze. On his neck, she saw a gold chain fall into the concave of his straining collar bone.  _ Mio fratello, sempre _ .  _ Fransico y Paolo. _ Said the inscription. Vaguely she knew one word held semblance to _ brother _ , a touching and rather dramatic effigy. She grabbed it, broke the clasp free. Even in death this pirate pawed for it, his eyes looking tortured and vapid as the chain went from him. Finally, an appropriate reaction. 

_ This is love. This is devotion. These are all the things Vaas refuses to give me.  _

She imagined Vaas thought Jason was another one of their childish spats. A toy, a doll stolen from her private quarters _. Look what I have. Look what you can't have _ . In that moment she hated him. In that moment she wanted him dead. But even more so she wanted Jason dead. Jason who she knew was weak. Jason who she should have squashed out like the meandering cockroach he was. If Vaas was the angry wound, Jason was the failed suture. For they were both one and the same. 

_ They had both said no.  _

She unearthed a memory of her mother, her hands busied with containing a stuck cotinga. Carefully she serrated the bird's wings, sliding a knife down the primary feathers as she cut. 

"---my goddess. Why does he hold so still? Why doesn't he fly away?" 

The blue feathers began to darken red, her mother's face going with it. 

"---you ruin my focus, girl. " 

There the bird remained until the next summer. The summer where it inevitably and unexplainably, died in its cage. 

This was how Citra learned to keep her pets. 


	13. La Fossa dei Leoni.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> La Fossa dei Leioni (italian) - The Lion's Den.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to be frank, these next two chapters are going to be dealing with a lot of triggering content. 
> 
> Self Harm, Post Traumatic Stress, Sexual Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome. We are going to be exploring a bit of Keith and Buck history and it's not pleasant. A fair warning, Buck is mentioned so that should be warning enough.

_ It would be easy. Pulling a trigger. Firing.  _

Jason and Keith sat shoulder to shoulder with their legs dangling over the railing of a wooden watch tower. Below them, dosed in a field of green vinery and bespeckled flowers, they could just see the two figures. One in red and the other in yellow. Vaas was idling behind Oliver as he tried to shoot a beer bottle off a fence. He failed, inevitably, and Vaas corrected his aim twice more until he hit the bottle. They turned to each other, Vaas putting an arm around Oliver's shoulder and pointing at something out of sight.

_ In that moment Jason hated them both. He would have liked to shoot them both. _

David was over in the corner, radioing in about a successful visit from Vaas's camp.  _ No, they hadn't recovered the twins Hoyt had sent there to keep an eye on things but they had reason to believe they had gone out on a rather ill-fated mission to reclaim a lost outpost. It was only the next night had the poor pirates realized that Rakyat forces had overtaken the point of interest and succeeded. Yes, they'd love some more recruits. That's very kind of Volker to help them in their hour of need.  _

"---are you sure about this, Jason?" Keith's voice was low, quiet enough to be a whisper. As if the pirates gave a damn if they talked amongst themselves. 

_ What the fuck do we have to be secretive about? There's no escape from this.  _

Regardless, Jason threw a cautionary look at David who was already waxing in on a speech about a wife back in Georgia. The privateer he was pretending to be was named Richard. _ Richie to his close friends _ . A man three years David’s senior and already endowed with four kids and a house. Jason couldn't help but be impressed by how easily David threw in the detail about how his wife loved her pearls.  _ Yes, she'll be the happiest when we send this new shipment out and I can buy them for her. Yes, sir.  _ He didn't say a name, nor did he mention anything about the children who were no doubt going to notice letters from Daddy were infrequent. But this was their plan, to buy some time. 

"---about what, Keith? The espionage?  _ I don't know _ . That's an atrocity I haven't committed yet." 

For reasons he couldn't really pinpoint, he still felt angry towards all of them. _ Daisy mostly. _ Jason was the only one out of the three who did not express words of concern when they learned she would be under the watchful gaze of Carlos until this whole thing was over. It went unspoken that she was their last bartering chip. If anything went awry, if they so much as  _ thought  _ of an escape, it would be her head on the chopping block. Not that it mattered now. The pirates needed the Americans now just as much as they needed them. They were the only white boys pretty enough to play the part of a privateer. 

"---you know what I mean, _ Jason. _ " There was clear, unbridled distaste in Keith's voice. It made Jason want to hit him again. Instead of this, Jason cupped a hand over his eye to form a telescope. The action resurfaced a childhood memory, an image of a by and gone past. He recalled a pier in Santa Monica, Grant by his side as they spied on their family down below on the shore. Their mother in a pastel beach dress, their father in cargo shorts, and an off-white button-up. He had felt jealous then too, his eyes falling upon the blue sun hat their mother had placed on baby Riley's fat bald head. He realized now that the feeling he had felt now was remarkably the same. Through the beams of light that snaked through the cracks of his fingers, Jason could just now catch sight of Vaas swinging his arms back and forth. Oliver was the only one facing them, his face turned up to Vaas as he was unmistakably grinning at him.  _ Laughing. They were over there laughing. _

_ I'm supposed to be your favorite.  _

"---why don't you just kill him, Jason?" Keith's question gave an inevitable pause. Not because of its content but the conditions in which it was asked. David was quiet now, ending his phone conversation with a long draw from a blunt.  _ They were being listened to, they were being watched. _ Because of this, Jason didn't answer. Keith, foolishly, took this as a go-ahead to continue. 

"--- _ he's not _ \---he's not what he seems, Jason." Keith was looking at him, Jason could feel his eyes trailing over his skin. It was not a predatory sort of look but an observational one. It was the look Jason’s mother gave when she was looking at a skinned knee, the look his father gave when looking upon a finished painting. 

"---I know you think because he has moments where he's like-- _ -kind or I don't know _ \---" The word was  _ romantic  _ but Keith felt the expression was too passionate, too feminine. "---you think that because you rely on him for things like food and water, he's someone important. You start to think that the things that happen to you--- _ the things he does _ \---they're actually your fault. If you behave, if you keep him happy then maybe he'll be nice again---" 

It was horrible, it was short and impartial but Jason had reasoned he did not want to hear any more of this. He wanted more than anything for Keith to stop talking, for David to come over and demand them to quiet down and tend to something else.  _ Of course when he actually wanted a pirate to come harass him, none of them could be bothered.  _ It had been a spoken agreement between Jason and Keith that Buck Hughes would never ever be brought up in conversation. Bambi was their little secret, the details of which went plummeting into the Pacific with the man's body. 

" Vaas isn't like Buck." Jason said, focusing his sight on the red blur that was now obscured by intervening leaves and ferns. 

_ Vaas never raped me. What happened the night before, I asked him to do it. My only regret is it didn't fucking happen. I wanted him to do it.  _

_ I want Vaas.  _

"---but they worked together." Keith mumbled, his vision following Jason's and resting upon Vaas who was standing balanced upon two wooden pillars that stuck out of the earth. Pillars that were once used to mark the place where the previous inhabitants had had a garden. 

"---there were times, even on the bad days, where I thought I loved him." 

Jason very visibly tensed and set his teeth on edge, wished even more that Keith would stop talking. 

" Sometimes, I thought it would be better if you didn't come. Giving him the power was easy, it was I don't know--- _ better _ sometimes." 

Here came Oliver now, trekking toward Vaas like the mouse testing the cheese in the trap. In all that riot gear Oliver looked large, his helmet inevitably slipping so that he had to push it once or twice back in place. He looked at Vaas the same way the Rakyat people would look up at the great statues that were carved within the faces of rocks.  _ Unmistakable awe, immeasurable gratitude.  _ In response, Vaas continued that curious swing of his arms, tilted his head upward as if contemplating the answer to a question.  _ They looked like school children at play, grade kids on recess.  _

"---people like that aren't _ human _ , Jason." Keith finally said. "---they can't love anything. You saved me from that, man. You---you woke me up. " 

"---I'm already awake." Jason replied, teeth still on edge. At that moment, as they were both looking at him, Vaas looked up from his introspection. He saw Jason and Keith now, furrowed his brow in a mockery of concern. When he realized what Jason was doing, when he realized he was quite studiously watching him, Vaas grinned at him. 

**\- X -**

The road they drove on was winding and threatening. Someone, whoever had the mind to, had carved a path from the front face of a mighty mountain. Jason tried to imagine Rakyat ancestors, men in grass skirts and hats, trying to chisel into the raw earth with fishbone tools. Couldn't picture it. Instead, he realized that the colonization of this land had been happening long before Hoyt was even an immaculate conception. 

_ Our land, the body of our Papatūānuku, has been desecrated for centuries. The heretic steal the milk from her children's mouths. They pillage her womb, they exhaust her lungs.  _

Citra's voice was inevitably faded out of relevancy by the mere image of her brother who was sitting not an arm's length away. The van idled, jumped when the wheels went over something cumbersome in the road. A body, maybe. A native wandering too close to occupied land. 

  
  


" Haha! Twenty fuckin' points!" Chewie shouted from the front seat. Jason stood corrected, the native they had run over was _ not  _ a body. He was still living, he could see him rolling back into the bush from the backseat window. 

"---christ." Keith breathed, a hand ghosting over the plastic rivets that kept the window stationed to the car door. 

Vaas looked nonplussed, his eyes trailing on a map that had been marked and swiveled around in red angry ink. It looked like a wound, this map. An infectious course of all the places where the pirates had dropped their poison. Jason did not know whether or not he should have been pleased that Amaki Village rested at the center of this scrawl untouched. This,  _ without a doubt _ , was the stronghold of Rakyat territory. A safe haven for civilians and the warriors they entertained. How and when it would be wiped off the face of the earth would only be a matter of time. 

"---Vaas?" Oliver started, hands drowning in fireproof gloves. "---what do you want us to do?" 

He was sitting beside Vaas, chin hooked near him so that he could catch a glimpse at the map. It was infuriating how close he was to him, how he lingered upon Vaas's presence as if he were the flame and Oliver the moth. What was even worse was that Vaas let him to do it. 

_ The last time I wanted to look at a map without Vaas's permission I got punched the fuck out. What the fuck is so special about Oliver? He's never even seen a fucking map outside the shit they put on a GPS and even that's stretching it.  _

" Stand around and look fucking pretty, Oliver." Vaas's tone was dismissive but it was by no means condescending. It was the manner of speaking a parent might give their child when they're busy on the phone.  _ Just wait for a second, sport. Daddy's on the phone with the office. _ Again, Jason wanted nothing more than to hurt Oliver and Vaas. Vaas would go hurdling out the moving car, break his neck perhaps. Oliver would be next, his face forced into the window for as many times it would take to make the glass break. As if sensing Jason's animosity, Oliver peeled himself from Vaas like a wrapper from its bar.  _ I wasn't doing anything. I'm innocent.  _ He looked to Jason, smiled meekly. Jason didn't smile back. 

"---and what do we get out of this, for standing around and looking pretty?" Everyone, including David who was sitting beside them fucking around with a smartphone, looked shocked that Keith could even speak. Vaas's attention shot up to him, the map concaving at his fists as they shook. He smiled at Keith, which was worse than striking him. 

" I'm sorry, Kevin." He started, leaning forward. "And what price would you find appropriate for your bullshit services? What debt would we possibly fucking owe you for showing up and looking like a pretty fucking white boy?" 

Keith very visibly blanched. No one spoke, no one offered him advice. Jason, quite honestly, was enthralled to see what he'd come up with. He rolled his lips, wiped away the smile that threatened to bud there. David did the same. 

" I'm sorry. Am I talking to myself? Am I speaking to the fucking void in space right now? ¡Hablemos de negocios, cariño! Hello!?! Speak, motherfucker! Talk! What the fuck do you want?!" 

"--I---I--" Keith spluttered, shirking in his new Privateer overcoat so that it bunched over his thinning shoulders. He looked tiny, as if he was wasting away into nothing but a pile of hand-me down jackets and belts.

" See this is the thing, this is the thing with you fucking foreigners, right? You come here, you come to this shit stain on the fucking map and you assume the world's all daisies and sunshine! A fucking lap dance here, a pussy and asshole here. It's all coming up fucking aces, right!? It's fucking mano y mano, Sympatico. No, no, no, no,  _ Kevin _ . Let me explain to you how the world works. Let me give you some key advice--" 

Vaas leaned over, pointed two fingers at Keith. Oliver was beside him, strapped to the wall of the van with his eyes front-facing. It was the same look he got when he was being chastised by his grandfather who perpetually lived in a mental Vietnam. Straight, unwavering, playing dead. 

" I fucking own you, hermano. I sold you once, right? I sold your pretty little white boy concha once, I'll fucking do it again. And I promise you, vato, _ I fucking promise you, _ your next papi won't be as courteous as Bambi. There are people at this fucking get together who make dearly departed fucking Buck Hughes look like the Bachelor, alright? And if I have any reason, any reason at all, to believe you've got loose lips or are thinking about getting cute, I'm going to cut your pretty boy ass into fucking pieces and sell it as barbecue meat. Pig and fuck boy taste the same on fucking white bread, you know?  _ You are not shit.  _ You are fucking replaceable, no, you are fucking expendable, okay? Nod your fucking head, fucking say something! I SWEAR TO FUCK IF YOU DON"T FUCKING TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND RIGHT THE FUCK NOW--" 

" I--I--I under--I--" Keith had his hands in front of his face now, the same stance Jason had found him in. For reasons he hated to admit, Jason liked it this way. _ Yes, Keith has been put in his place. I am above someone. I am more important than Keith.  _

" Oliver--" Jason started, hoping God he would trip up and Vaas would have to punish him too. " We should probably get our stories together, find out who is pretending to be who." 

_ Look at me. I'm staying in line. Tell me how good I am. Congratulate me for my wonderful sportsmanship. I am with you, I am faithful.  _

"My name's Landon." Oliver started, not looking at anyone. 

"Richie." David intervened. 

"---Marshall," Jason mumbled, looking to Keith who was about ready to be thrown into one of his convulsive fits. 

" And what's your name, perrito?" Vaas started, leaning clearly in front of Keith so he had no place else but to look but at him. "Do you not know english, hermosa? Are you a fucking mute all of the sudden? FUCKING SPEAK!" 

"Benjamin. My name is Benjamin." 

" Okay, Benjamin. You failed to answer my fucking question. I asked you what you would take as payment for playing dress-up with Volker and his pets. What do you think you deserve?" 

" I deserve---I deserve---" Keith looked to Oliver who refused to return the gesture. Then to Jason who was looking remarkably like a child holding a magnifying glass to an anthill. When Vaas struck him hard with a closed fist at the temple he readjusted himself, fell back into place. 

"I deserve nothing." 

**\- X -**

Once again, he was finding himself feeling apprehensive of Jason Brody. Not for the usual offenses, the sabotage, and general malintent but for his silence. He had been expecting some sort of resistance, a refusal to fall in line and cooperate. Actually, he was quite set on the idea that it would be Jason who would try and rouse his troops. He would be the one to question authority, the one to demand his freedom at the end of this. But that had not happened. 

Instead, it had been the banker. Funny, Buck's pets had never before had a resurgence in personality. One week in his care and they would be docile and mute, eyes looking out toward a horizon that was neither rising or setting. Keith had been with Buck for three entire weeks. Three weeks of having to sit in his own disentary, three weeks of unreciprocated sex and violence. Putting him back in his place had been relatively easy, of course. Like all of Buck's former subjects, a raised voice had him shirking back into that hardened shell he'd built for himself. A stuttering mess, Vaas was sure not to give him any room to make himself known again. 

Jason was easing himself to look out the window now, his eyes falling upon a privateer outpost that had three armed yellow jackets at its front. They took a hand off of their guarded rifles as the van passed, raised it a rather facisistic salute but the gesture was simply cordorial. Jason, ever the sheep, waved back at them. 

"---um, Vaas?" Oliver was still sitting next to him. He had become unnervingly needy these past few weeks. But so was his breed. Sheltered, but groomed to obey. He was like the pitbulls you saved from fighter clubs, wounded and gnawed on but still willing to come to a soft opened hand. Brashness and cruelty got you nowhere with these types. They would lock up, stick their chins to their chest and never look up again. Perhaps there was an overzealous father in their past, a private school teacher who made them write sentences in chalk.  _ At least that's how it is in the movies. _ Vaas idled his attention from Jason back to Oliver, keeping his lids lowered so that he looked calmer, more receptive. He would like to keep Oliver on amiable terms. Oliver was the only one who seemed to have seen Carlos's crueler side, the only one who would believe he had one. 

"---you said we are gonna go to a party?" He started, leaning over on his knees to maintain eye contact. Jason seemed to lose all interest with the outside when he heard Oliver say Vaas's name. And that in itself was a strange new behavior. Oliver, for whatever the reason, was not allowed to talk to Vaas. It was as if Jason thought they were constantly in the throes of some secret code. As if he had to be vigilant to catch it, to send it back to the in team to decipher it. 

" You like parties." Vaas replied, not a question but an assertion as if saying it would make it so. 

"---y-yeah." Oliver started, purposefully peeling away from Jason who was looking at him like he was something to eat. "--but uh---I've never partied with slave traffickers before." 

Vaas smiled, purposefully not looking at Jason. " They're like every other motherfucker you've met, I fucking promise.  _ Horny, high, looking to spend some fucking cash _ . You white boys, you'll fit right the fuck in." 

Oliver blanched, Vaas continued. " Did you bring your cards?" 

"---yeah. You asked me too." 

"Fantastic. Show them that shit you do. " 

Jason had had enough of this. "---who are we going in to kill?" 

Keith looked up from his self inflicted pout, glared at Jason with an oblong side glare. For the first time you could tell how much he had really started to loathe Jason. Not for the killing, that shit was always necessary, but for the eagerness he brought with it. This man thinks his friend is a monster.  _ How dramatic.  _

Vaas hummed, shook a pack of cigarettes he'd found in the side pocket of his pants. " It's fucking amazing, Jason. I ask for a low profile, give you a disguise, and you ask who we are going in to kill."

"---well it makes sense. Why else would you be bringing us to the fucking lion's den?" 

" Lion's den. That's cute." 

"Well Volker is going to be there, right? Then it's a fucking lion's den." 

"Nah, nah. More like a fucking monkey cage. It's a presentation party." 

Keith visibly tensed at that, looked up but not at Vaas. He was looking away, recalling something that had sat and stewed in the back of his mind like rotting meat. He imagined Keith looking upon Buck from a sea of innocuous faces, his hands tied behind his back and his mouth gagged. L _ ove at first fucking sight.  _

"---presentation party?" Jason asked. 

" It's where they present the meat." David's voice, lazy and noncommittal. " You didn't go last time cause you were special. You--" 

Vaas gave David a dangerous look, he stopped talking. Jason clearly wanted to press the issue further.  _ Why am I not special enough to be presented? I'm so fucking pretty.  _

" There's a presentation party and three high ranking privateers won't be around to scope out the goods. All right after they were said to have paid a visit to our camp. You see the problem." David corrected himself, looked to Vaas for reassurance. _ This is better, right? Tell me this is what you want me to do.  _ Vaas gave him no such pleasure. 

Jason opened his mouth then, probably to say something smart or cute but closed it again when he inevitably realized he was the reason for all this trouble. He was the reason the twins had to die and by extension, he was the reason the privateers had to go after them. All this trouble, by association, was _ his  _ fault. He looked to Vaas then, wanting an explanation he knew neither of them would have liked to give. 

_ Why keep me? Why do this because of me?  _

Vaas didn't want to think of this, didn't want to examine the ins and outs of what meant what and where it lead. It was easier to think of things from a safe distance, a perspective that allowed one to contemplate the curves and bounties of the valley. It was better to look at life as if you were setting to chart across its dangerous terrain. 

_ This move will get me  _ **_here_ ** _ , if I stay still, I will wind up  _ **_here._ **

He thought now of Carlos. Carlos who had acted in his absence the night before. Vaas understood why the privateers had to die, but at the same time he couldn't fathom why Carlos acted as quickly as he did. By Chewie's account, there was no deliberation when it happened. All the men just happened to be there at the center of camp, they all just so happened to be armed and ready to kill. Usually they're too high to think, too distracted to form a collective. 

_ " I had to do what was necessary, jefe." _ Carlos had said. _ "What if they found out our little secret? I assume you took care of the other rat, yes? Paolo will be heading back to the South."  _

In many ways, Carlos reminded him of Citra. You could never truly get angry with him because he acted in your self interest. If you questioned him, reminded him that you were just as important as he was, he would smile at you and agree. He spoke to you as if you were a child, as if you were constantly acting out of impulse.

_ Yes, I understand, brother. But you must understand the sacrifices we make for our people. _

_ Sacrifices must be made for change, jefe. In time you will understand.  _

By now they had officially taken down three of the twelve privateer outposts on the South Island. All of which were continuing to operate as if nothing had happened, interacting with both their peers and pirate allies like cogs in a well oiled machine. They functioned entirely in wait, waiting for the day when Hoyt went down. This way you would have no eager replacements, loyalists ready to avenge their fallen leader. Carlos's actions had been dangerous, rash. Wouldn't it have been better to hold these men as hostages? They could use them as ploys to continue communication with Volker and his living chess pieces. They made these kind of ransoms all the time. A naval man would call his wife and tell her he’s leaving her. A businessman would call his bank and order everything to his off-shore account for a vacation. Everyone becomes an actor when you put a gun to their back. 

_ No, no, no. They have to die. If you let them live, if you let them fester, they pollute the others. Rich men learn how to manipulate, jefe. I've seen it before.  _

Vaas thought then of Jason, a subject that always distracted him when he felt his mind begin to tense. Jason was an immovable object, something he could constantly control. He smiled at Jason, an action that made the other man look down at his feet and then back at Oliver. Amazing how easy it was to read Jason's mind. Vaas leaned back, fingers lacing behind his head.

"--you know, Jason. You've been exhibiting some very good behavior, vato. You've been improving, fucking listening--" 

Jason rolled his eyes, looked to Vaas with a tired don't do this right now look. Vaas's smile widened.

" Who knows, vato. I mean, who fucking knows, maybe Volker will let Snow White pick out a Prince Charming." 

"---you're offering me---a fucking slave?" 

" Slave is a matter of fucking perspective, I think. Volker calls them gifts. It's like throwing a raise to a fucking desk jockey, you know? An incentive for good behavior." 

Keith looked up then, looked to Jason and then back to Vaas. Jason looked only to Vaas now, his focus unwavering. 

"---I'll keep it in mind."

**\- X -**

He felt startlingly like a teenager again. Not in the good, carefree way, but the anxious, self assuming way. He felt like there was an exam he hadn't studied for, an essay due on a book he had never read. The van came to a trepid stop and with it came the overwhelming knowledge that reality would finally get the leverage it needed to catch up with it. Here he was, still twenty-five and young but feeling as though he had lived long enough to eclipse a lifetime. Oliver did not understand this. Keith  _ could  _ but his vision was sullied by grief. He retreated inwards, building comprehensive walls between himself and the world at large. 

_ Yes, this is what happens to victims, I am not a victim. I am not like Keith. But I am also not like Buck, I am not cruel without having to be. I take no pleasure in what I do, I am not like Vaas.  _

With this last mental note, he came upon the rather unsettling revelation that Vaas would be leaving them. He was making his way toward the opening of the van, three yellow-clad privateers nodding to him as he rounded the van to collect Chewie. One of them grinned at him, an action that made Vaas shirk and laugh. 

_ And he is enjoying this, enjoys leaving me behind. I fucking _ **_hate_ ** _ him. Look what he's left me to work with.  _

Oliver was looking at Vaas as if he were an actor looking for his director to give him a forgotten line. The yellow jackets were inevitably satisfied with some business talk, questions for Vaas over the suitability of some  _ chop suey _ they had to go back to camp. They looked to Jason and his friends with callous disinterest, not bothering to greet them or offer a hand to steady them on their way out of the van. One of them, Foster,  _ Jason had gathered from some keen listening _ , had spat at the wheels of the van with some form of vigor.  _ We are comrades but I rank higher than you _ . 

Blissfully he thought of how Carlos had described the privateers that had infiltrated their camp. Marshall himself had talked business, demanded to speak to a superior. All at once, Jason understood. Men like Marshall Patt behave the way they do because they are stuck in their own rungs in a ladder. You shit on those below because you are constantly getting shit on those above. It creates a vicious cycle, a whirlwind of contempt for those below an invisible ranking. Marshall Patt, like the pirates below him, was a miserable human being. 

Ingenious when you think of it. Like at Jason’s first job as a busboy. His manager had promoted him to assistant cutter which meant he was the first to slice the hot pizza. He didn't get anything from it but a few more sores on his hand where molten cheese had hit it. But damn, he got that spiffy green apron that no one else got.  _ He had worked there for three fucking years. _ This is how the world works, this is how evil men operate. 

" You boys aren't itching to party yet, are you?" Foster said this with a lower lip full of tobacco, the sight of which made Jason suppress a gag. 

" No, sir." Keith's voice, rumbling and slow. Foster raised an eyebrow at this and Jason had to wonder if dearly departed Benjamin had been more of a talker. 

" Why? You got work for us?" Jason intervened, flicking two fingers at foster to hand over the tobacco chew with a hope that it was something Marshall Patt would like. He was right, after all. Foster handed it over without question, watched Jason hook the sour shit into his lip, and roll it down. 

"If you can call it that." Foster grinned, swiping a finger under his nose. “You know how fuckin' surveillance jobs are, Matt." 

_ A convenient little mash-up of first name Marshall and Patt makes Matt.  _ A clever nickname, these two must have been familiar. Familiar enough for nicknames but not to remember the guy's fucking face? Jason could picture it now, Foster only gave a damn about Marshall Patt after his promotion. A promotion Marshall would only enjoy for two weeks. Marshall and Foster would meet each other on a blue moon for these fucking hazing parties, probably drunk and they’d sometimes radio in.  _ Like highschool cheerleaders, finally happy to be on the team. _ Jason smiled but not out of amiability. He just thought it was funny that Matt was at the bottom of some ravine, fish eating at his eyes. 

" Yeah, easy money." Jason spat, ruminating in the bitter taste that began to envelop between his teeth and on the inner wall of his gums.  _ Why the fuck did I get cast to play the hick?  _

Foster snorted, clapped Jason on his back hard enough to jostle the scabbed skin there.  _ Fucking asshole.  _

"Well, Matt, we can't all be winners. That's why  **_you_ ** assholes--" He pointed to Keith and David. "---get to do cleanup." 

David sighed, rolled his neck. "--- _ again _ ?" 

" Yes again, asshole!" Foster shot back, Jason could practically feel Keith tense up. 

"---do I get the watchtower this time?" Oliver mumbled. Jason couldn't help but feel impressed how composed Oliver was, how he remembered their talks back in the cave. 

_ If you see one of them in a watchtower, run the opposite way. I’m serious, Ollie. The privateers actually hire decent shots.  _ Jason allowed himself to feel affection towards Oliver again. The first time in awhile. 

" That depends,  _ Landon. _ " Foster started. "---have  _ you _ learned how to shoot a still fucking target?" 

Oliver theatrically rolled his eyes. "---fuck you, man." 

Foster let out one of his belly laughs, gave Oliver a slap on the back that nearly dislocated his shoulder. " I only speak the truth." 

"---what are we cleaning up?" Keith was already shutting down, his voice cold and robotic. David slapped him, hard on the back of the head. He had failed some secret code. 

" Drugs and fucking hookers get to you, man?" 

"---big surprise there." Oliver chimed, slyly slipping Keith a squeeze to the shoulder. "It'll be good for you to clear your head, Ben." 

Jason wasn't going to give Foster or any of the other privateers a chance to study Keith further. He pulled in close to Foster, made it a point to exclude the other two. "---you wouldn't believe some of the shit I saw out in the field, man. " 

Foster grinned, exposing two missing lower bicuspids that had been eaten away by the tobacco. Keith and David were guided off by the other two armed privateers, neither of them looking back. 

" Hey, ears were made for listening," Foster said. 

**\- X-**

Richard Brody had been a marksman. Not for any purpose, he dodged the drafts for the Gulf war and continued that flower child lifestyle for the majority of his tragic existence. His father before him had taught him how to shoot, the father before that having owned a cabin somewhere in the frigid terrains of Canada. The Brody boys would all grow up with summers on a lake, catching game and stoking campfires. The first thing Jason had ever killed was a fresh-eyed doe, the same one he skinned and seared that night. It was only afterward, when his family had been fed and his father proud, that he thought of the possibility of a fawn wandering the campgrounds, motherless because of him. He, who could get his meat pre-slaughtered at any grocery store on the map. He, who had enjoyed the thrill of tracking and killing. 

_ “A man has to live off the land, Jason. You never know when humanity's just gonna crumble.” _

_ What the fuck did that even mean? Was he raising us for the apocalypse or some shit? Why didn’t we ask about it when we were kids?  _

Jason couldn't help but think of his father now as he watched a sniper guide his sights down at another vehicle passing in. Former military,  _ most likely _ , so many of these guys were. Realizing Foster was almost done boasting about some blowjob he had in Amanaki village, Jason fished the tobacco from his lip and chucked it right at the sniper's feet.  _ Hoped he would slip on it.  _

"---but enough about my expeditions. Word has it you were gonna catch a peek at Vaas's camp. " 

Jason sniffed, eyes watering from the terrible taste still at his teeth. Oliver craned his neck in concern, Jason waved him off. "---yeah,  _ well, _ you can never be too careful with those pirates." 

"---yeah but Vaas." Foster trailed off, shirking deeper into a parachute that was gilded to his back. "Vaas just doesn't give a shit--" 

"---what does that mean?" Oliver piped up then.  _ He heard his fucking boyfriend come up in conversation.  _ Jason started hating him again. 

Foster looked at Oliver and Jason, slowed down so that the two of them were eclipsed in a circle. "---I mean he's a ticking fucking time bomb. You had to have seen him, right? How he  _ works--" _

Jason realized quite suddenly that he didn't like how Foster was speaking. As if this were workplace drama, _ gossip.  _

"---I mean, you know why Volker hired him, the real reason---" 

Color Jason intrigued! "---kind of? Refresh my memory." 

Oliver blanched, felt they were invading privacy. 

"---well it's rumors, mostly and there are different stories everywhere you look. Don't you think it's weird how quickly he got his own fuckin' compound, his own faction and his own---" 

"His own  _ what, _ Foster? What does Vaas have that you don't?" The voice behind them was cordial, almost sensual. Oliver was the fist to turn away, looking downward with his hands crossed over his midsection like a slave greeting pharaoh. To Jason, this was rather dramatic, too jumpy. The man before them,  _ while obviously rich _ , looked like he commanded no such respect. His suit was ill-fitting, red with a pelican broach on one lapel. He was remarkably thin for it, his neck looking like the pulley sticking out of an old-fashioned well. 

"---Mr. Volker, I mean no disrespect I---" 

_ Ah, so this was the famous Hoyt Volker!  _ All this talk, all this uproar, and Jason could not help but think Hoyt would go down in one punch. Solving all my problems would be fucking easy. Volker raised a hand clad in rings to stop Foster from swiveling. Beads of sweat had already begun to glisten the privateer's temples, blonde curls jostling from a gelled hold. 

" No, no. Gossip means no disrespect. To be talked about is to be loved to some degree. Plato said that." Hoyt grinned. 

Jason had to sit through three dumb ass philosophy courses in college.  _ Plato said no such thing. _ Foster was smoothing back his hair, trying to regain a small sense of composure. Hoyt looked at him with unremarkable contempt. 

"---I came here looking for the fellow who headed the recent recon mission. A Mr. Patt?" 

"That's me, sir." Jason started. "---but  _ uh _ \---Mr. Patt is my father. Marshall's fine." 

Hoyt smiled at this, probably not used to any semblance of friendliness. "---ah yes, your father. How is he?" 

Fuck! "---coherent." Jason mumbled. 

Hoyt laughed at that. "And there's that wonderful sense of humor, eh? I can see the family resemblance." He looked at Oliver, handed him a pistol that was once attached to Foster's belt. "---I am going to entrust you to teach this superior of yours a thing or two about gossiping and telling lies." 

The sniper behind them was full attention now, grinning. Oliver did that thing he did when he was cheating at monopoly, the crease in his brow forming into a red line. "---um. Yes, sir. Can I---" He looked to the happy sniper. "---phone a friend?" 

" I don't care what the fuck you do but give me and Mr. Patt here some fuckin' space or you'll be next." 

Foster was laughing nervously, looking to Jason to verify something, to save him. Nothing came. Jason, remarkably felt nothing as Volker hooked an arm around him and pulled him into his stink of cigar smoke and aftershave. This man could be someone's weird uncle, he thought, hating the image. He wanted to look back at Oliver who he had no doubt was panicking, but the doors that lead to the glassed-over balcony had already shut between them. 

"---and how do you take your wine, Marshall?" Volker asked. 

"---a friend of mine says red is the best. Said white tastes like shit." 

Volker threw his head back and laughed. “--well your father liked the red too. His partiality to it is what killed him, afterall.” 


	14. Memento Mori.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memento Mori (latin) - A Death Token, commonly depicted as an effigy of the deceased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter came from a dark place, somewhere deep and rather unpleasant. It was a cathartic writing in a way but if you find mentions of suicide, physical and sexual abuse unsavory, it would be best to skip. 
> 
> I hope this doesn't upset you if you do read it? I have debated adding this in for like a week or so. Here goes nothing.

And everywhere he went he saw jaded pieces of himself. 

_Here was where they brought me in, battered and bruised. Here is where that man back-handed me when I tried to make a run for the open door. Here is where they made me fistfight that frap boy for table scraps. And here---_

Here was where he had first seen Buck. He had been wearing something clad in leather, a biker's jacket with the collar turned up. Like something from a movie, a James Dean flick but with low budget casting. He remembered he thought nothing of him when the bidding started, only getting angry when Buck continuously raised the bid several thousand a hand. He could remember cutting daggers his way when all other bidders ceased, an action that made Buck smile and wink over his beer. He looked human then, he looked normal. 

Now there was a rather timid looking alter type in Keith’s place on the catwalk. From what Keith could see the boy was emaciated, his image looking horrifically juvenile. Cleanup was an easy enough job, count the stragglers and the rejects destined to be hulled back to their respective camp. He just couldn't remember counting _this_ one. This small, insignificant little thing with the red hair and the eyes that stared this way past nowhere. David noticed Keith staring, jostled his shoulder.

"---ah there's, _Jim._ " David had said, rolling his eyes. 

"Jim?" Keith asked. 

" Yeah, _Slim Jim._ " David noted, throwing his eyes up and down the man's figure as if the nickname should be obvious by the mere state of him. He wore humorous pink pumps, a leather strapped outfit that made him look like something out of a dystopian film. He lingered around a stripper pole, glanced outward to a collection of people who sneered and laughed. How long had he been here? How long had he been doing this? Too long it seemed. 

_A lifetime of failing to attract a permanent owner, eons of going from buyer to buyer like a cheap rental car. Who was he before this? Who have they stolen him from?_

"---he charges the same price as a Slim Jim at the gas station. That's the joke." David said, jostling a blonde woman to her feet and back behind a red curtain. She went, easily enough, not before squaking something about how her turn wasn't done yet. He looked annoyed when Keith didn't respond. But all Keith could think was how different things would have been if Jason hadn’t come when he did. What if someone in the crowd had helped him when he was in that position, what if someone had bothered to save him?

"---then an hour, maybe two." Keith said this, but David was not really listening. _These types of men never listened._ Before he knew it he was a mere foot away from Slim Jim's absued toes, curled and raw flecks of meat that cornered into their pumps like packaged sausages. He was gaunt for the twenty years his handler promised he was and when Keith pressed him on a price, he insisted that Hoyt's boys got in all on the house. If Slim Jim protested, Keith would never know. 

All he knew now was the limp wrist in his hand, the curious wave of red curls that bounced this way and that. A fragile creature, a bird with clipped wings. 

"---Ith---gooth---" Slim Jim muttered, ropes of spit tumbling from pastel pink lips. All his teeth had been removed to make his work easier. Every single one. 

"---I'm here---" Keith said, ignoring David's hollering command to get back on the job. "---I'm here to help you." 

"Twenthhh---" Slim Jim offered a gummy smile but Keith didn't return it. They were halfway to a private room of some sort, a suite that held nothing but red light and a high window that revealed that this room had once been a basement. 

This would have to do. 

  
  


- **X-**

Jason attempted to remain calm although every instinct he had told him to grab something sharp and start jabbing. Nevertheless, he remained as composed as his fresh nerves would allow, slacking his jaw and grinding together his teeth in a feverish pursuit of peace. In truth, he didn't much care for how Hoyt Volker was looking at him. It was a mix between intrigue and smugness, the kind of look a bad poker hand might give you right when he thinks he's played a clever move. The trick here was to remain calm, collected, play it like a _game of fucking poker._ Volker extended him a champagne glass, a long skinny thing with no bubbles. _How fancy!_

"---you knew my father?" Jason started, taking the offered glass of red wine without a second’s contemplation what it could be spiked with.

_No, he wants me lucid. He wants to catch me on his own accord._

"---and you _didn't_?" Volker smiled, sitting himself down on his desk as he took a drink straight from the bottle.

"---my mother didn't want me knowing a mercenary much less one with _bad habits_ ." He took a swig of his wine, ruminated on the bittersweet taste that infected his pallet like a coming fever. Within himself, he began to wonder why suburban house wives had made this their drink of choice. It was bitter, almost salty, if it wasn't for the quick intoxication, there would be no use for it. _Ah, here in lies the answer! We all have something to take the edge away._

" And becoming a gun for hire? _That_ doesn't count for bad fucking habits?" Volker laughed. 

"---not when you come from a line of them, sir." Jason started, feeling rather exhilarated with his own lie. _Yes, ask me about the abandoned children I have in Chile!_ He was just about to amend that small fall he had had earlier, the one-off statement about a coherent step-father when Volker cleared his throat. It was casual rumination in the back of the throat, a culling sort of, teacher suggestion that made Jason decide he couldn’t hate Hoyt Volker enough. He knocked back the rest of the wine, never really tasting it. 

“---of course you know why you’ve been called here.” 

“Of course, I do.” Jason realized a little too late how biting that remark was. It was too frugal, too honest with his true feelings. Hoyt raised an eyebrow and Jason added a half mumbled: “--- _sir_.” at the end of it.

Volker considered him for what felt like an eternity, his eyes the kind of blue medical PPE is colored. A sterile blue, shocking, impartial. “ And what do you think of my lovely second in command? What are your thoughts on Mr. Montenegro?” 

Jason gave no immediacy in his response, no proper reciprocation that he even understood the question. For in actuality, he didn’t exactly know how to answer it. He could tell the truth, he supposed, say that on most days: _I can’t stand Vaas. If he were to drop down dead my only regret would be that I wasn’t the one to do it. He is rude. He is horrific. He killed my older brother and did who knows what with the younger one. But, god that doesn’t stop me from wanting him to fucking look at me with something other than recognition. Didn’t stop me from climbing on top of him, kissing him, putting my hand---_

“ _Lovely_ is not a word I would use to describe him.”

_Yes it is. His mouth is lovely on mine. He tastes like---_ Jason stopped himself, disgust pulling the corners of his mouth into a grimace. Hoyt misunderstood this, taking it as distaste for the subject matter. He grinned at Jason, a sight that made Jason’s distaste for himself point itself outwards. Yes, it felt better hating Hoyt again. 

“ Well, you’re polite, Mr. Patt. But I didn’t fucking send you over there to make friends, did I?” 

“No, you sent me to spy.” God, why the fuck don’t I have any self control any more? Shut up. Shut up. “---I mean, gather intel? Is that the word?” 

“Yes it’s the right fucking word! Now are we going to continue to speak like fucking school children or are we men, Mr. Patt? Can we talk like fucking adults? Are you fucking capable of that?” Hoyt was over the table now, one finger pressing into the padding of Jason’s vest. 

“---yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.” In a terrible moment, Jason had to remind himself he wasn’t speaking to Vaas. The manner of speech was frightfully similar, the shortness of temper and direction a near mirror image. Their voices even heightened at the same points, the word _fuck_ coming out like a mugger’s dagger in between the sentence. He thought then of the rakyat, their cool, collected way of talking and communicating. This is where Vaas learned it, he thought.Such a shocking contrast to Citra, who would only ever raise her voice to a commanding assertion. _This was where Vaas reprogrammed himself, Hoyt was his teacher._

" Then know also that I have made sniffing out liars my life's work." Hoyt started, circling himself back around the mighty oak desk and into its seat. He looked remarkably small there amongst the growing tower of papers, his meager build, and suit making him look like the accountant you might ask to file away your pay stubs. 

"---I have no reason to lie to you, sir." 

"Oh? Then why did you lie outside? Calling your father fucking coherent and shit." 

"You'd prefer if I said _dead_ , sir? You'd prefer if I wasted your time explaining to you that I consider my stepfather, who is battling stage five brain cancer, my _real_ father? Perhaps I could have gone farther, Mr. Volker. I could have told you about how my grandmother--" 

"God, you can fucking talk, can't you? " Volker threw a condescending hand upwards, dismissing Jason's bullshit. He pawed again at the wine, one thumb dislodging the gold leaf that embroidered upon the word _Firenze._

"---only because you asked me to, sir." Jason couldn't hide his smugness, tilted his head to study the profile of a cherub mid flight on the side of the bottle. The artwork was beautiful, wasted on the likes of such sour-tasting grape juice. " I'm not a liar." 

" Then let's cut a deal, Mr. Patt." Volker said, noticing Jason's intrigue with the bottle and mistaking it for lust. He handed it over. "From now on, you give me no fucking pleasantries, you cut nothing out in the way of time allotted and punctuality. I ask you a question, you give me the immediate fucking answer." 

"Yes, sir." Jason replied, accepting the wine but not taking a sip. God knows where the fuck Hoyt's mouth had been before then. 

"Fantastic!" Hoyt said this joyously, throwing himself backward on the chair and resting a foot atop the desk. The shoes were pointed at the toes, reminding Jason of western pictures of the Devil. The fiddler on the crossroads of some hick town train tracks. "-- _-of course_ , today's subject matter requires a keen accuracy of detail." 

"---Vaas." Saying the name felt like heresy here, like talking about the man was somehow betraying him. But it should not have been so. Vaas was the enemy, after all, the root of all evil. Ratting Vaas out would and should be easy. 

" The one and only." Hoyt said, fishing out a cigar from the breast pocket of his suit but never putting it between his teeth. Now Hoyt was using it to point at Jason, accenting his point. "It has come to my understanding that you couldn't recover Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum? _The Italian versions of them anyway._ What would that be? _Mario and Luigi_?" 

Jason smiled when Hoyt burst out into laughter, slapping a hand down his thigh as he let out a low bellow. "---it was our understanding that the two of them may have been killed on a recon mission, Mr. Volker. They went to reclaim a former outpost of theirs and didn't come back." 

" _Uh huh--_ " Hoyt looked to be the picture of contemplation, his head lulled back as his eyes studied the ceiling with unbridled amusement. "---so Vaas sent out two demolition experts, _the only he has_ , out to do a reclamation mission?" 

Jason began to feel angry, attempting to not let it show on his face. "---they had done it before, sir. I think Vaas said they were the ones who had taken back Fort Anchor--" 

" And bombed it so fucking bad it wasn't any use to anyone. Yes, _I remember that_ \---" 

" With all due respect, sir. They had no choice. The Rakyat had raised an alarm--" 

"And Vaas told you all of this?" 

Jason stopped himself, regretting how his mind had already labeled their little excursion on Fort Anchor as a good memory. If his mind was a photo album, the image of him triumphantly sinking a dagger into that warrior's chest would be put fondly next to his first ride on a Ferris wheel. And that, he knew, _was fucked up._

"---I wanted to be very thorough with him, sir." Jason replied, trying to focus only on the chill of the bottle in his hands. 

" And he complied? You must be a miracle worker, Marshall." 

"---I think he understood the gravity of the situation, sir." 

" You never answered my question, by the way. What do you think of Mr. Montenegro?" 

Jason looked up at Volker then, his thoughts concaving and juxtaposing into each other like a deck of shuffling cards. He thought of the image of Vaas from between the bars of a cage. He thought of Vaas sitting in the front seat of the car as they were on their way to the party house. He thought of Vaas staring down at him just after kicking him down into a ravine. He thought of the look on Vaas's face when they were in that fort, his hands to Jason's face. He thought of how Vaas had given him that same look when Jason laid beside him on that mattress, his fingers through his hair as he said: _"It will go away. In time, it won't bother you._ " The feeling in the pit of his stomach when their mouths met, the friction of Vaas's teeth on his collar bone. Jason realized then that there was silence between Hoyt and himself, a silence that was no doubt suspicious. 

"---I don't know, sir." He said, rolling the bottle between his hands.

" And therein lies the problem, Mr. Patt." Volker replied, pointing his cigar at him. "---that's how everyone fucking feels about him. Nobody fucking knows anything." '

"---then _why-_ -" Jason went to stop himself but figured doing so would look more dubious. "---then why hire him, sir?" 

Volker considered this, swiveled his mouth to the side, and tapped the cigar as if cleaning it of ash. 

" You know, _Marshall,_ I don't think I have a good answer for you. He would have made a wonderful slave, mind you. His people have a blase approach to sexuality, training him to take dick would have been easy. If he wouldn't have come to me so _damaged_ , perhaps things would have been different. That's the thing _you know_ , the value of the meat goes down once you've fucked up the face--" 

Hoyt paused, smiled at the rather disgusted expression on Jason's face. He leaned closer, resting his chin into his palm as he placed an elbow on a desk. "---I suppose I kept him along because he sought me out. Anyone willing to cooperate with half their fucking head flayed open must be one hell of a worker." 

"---what happened?" Jason said, leaning on his knees. Volker waved him off, opened the drawer beside him to finally look for a match for his cigar. When he found it, it didn't light for three entire strikes. 

"If you want my advice, Mr. Patt you'd be well to watch him. Why, if anything happens to Vaas, well there'd be quite the vacancy open. Man of your credentials, _of your stature_ , why there's a lot one could gain." 

"---what are you asking me to do, sir?" 

" Nothing out of the realm of nature, Mr. Patt. People like Vaas, they are a lot like black holes. When they go out, they take everything and everyone with them. I'm really only asking you to make sure the rest of us don't go down in the burn out--" He grinned again, showing Jason teeth that looked filed and well kept. A serpent's grin, the wolf beaming at the sheep. He moved a lot like a wolf too, his ill-fitting suit his shedding sheep's skin. Jason thought of Carlos then, his religion of self-interest _. Evil men do evil things, they operate in self-interest._ It would be easy. Like pulling that trigger, like leaping off that cliff, jumping from the plane. He could tell Hoyt everything. Tell him about the little coup that was going on under his nose, the hundreds of men who operated in and out of his compounds with malice in their hearts. It would be easy betraying Vaas. It would be easy, for once in his sorry fucking life to tell the truth. 

_But where would I be without Vaas? With Daisy and Keith? With Oliver. What a fucking thought._

"---and one can only guess the type you like to take, Mr. Patt. I have many to offer in my catalog. Why, I've saved one for just such an occasion. Young, nineteen, the darkest hair you could---" 

Someone downstairs was screaming. The cry was disdainfully painful, like someone who had just had their heart broken. He knew it immediately as Oliver. 

**-X-**

The group in front of him composed of a gaggle of french women wearing matching feather boas. When he pushed past them they nearly swooned, one reaching toward Jason's arm in a demand for some sort of explanation in broken English. The club music was still blazing, the bass thrumming up from the floor and into Jason's feet like the heartbeat of a giant. It was not hard to find where all the commotion was coming from, which room held the point of interest. Everyone was collected at the front of one private room, one that had an interior painted magenta to induce one's sense of ecstasy. At the center of the French ladies, collapsed in some heap, was a rather sorry excuse of a go-go dancer. _Pink pumps, red hair, a mess of half-witted apologies and excuses._ David held him up by the shoulders, shook him twice and muttered something about incompetence. 

" What the fuck is going on!?" Jason demanded, catching David's eye. 

"This nasty fuck colluded with our boy Benjamin." David said, backhanding the blubbering go-go dancer who managed to get free and wavered to Jason. 

"---- _Ith wathh goooth. Honthhhh. I watthhh goooth. Heethh wenttthh_ \---" Jason threw the man off him in disgust, only halfway realizing that Volker had followed him out with his lit cigar. When the go-go dancer saw Hoyt, he went to him with outstretched arms, crying on in his toothless mantra. What became of him then Jason wouldn't know because he was on David like a shark on chum. 

" Where the fuck are they?!" Jason demanded. "Where are the men who came with you?!" 

David gave Jason a furious look, shook his shoulders from Jason's grip with tearing certainty. "---in the fucking room. Both of them. _See for yourself_ \--" 

And what magic those words must have held, what power. For when they were said the people began to part like the red sea, the French women dabbing whispering lips with lace handkerchiefs and dollies. A middle-aged man, dressed in cargo shorts and sandals, moved his haughty frame from one end of the crowd to the next. A discount Santa Clause, his beard shook when Jason moved past him and further to the open maw of the purple room. They all stared at him, eyes far back into skulls that peered through the debris of inebriation and lust. 

_What will he do?_

_Oh god, what will he do?_

It was then revealed that the vague mass leaning against the wall that led to the room was Vaas. He had one shoulder brunted into the pole of a handrail, his arms crossed over his chest. He was looking at something suspended in the room, something hanging from the spinning disco ball that mounted the stripper pole. 

"---what a fucking _idiot_ ." Vaas said, throwing a smoked out cigarette into the crowd and not caring who it hit. Chewie was beside him, on his right as always and _god, he looked absolutely terrified._ He was looking at the suspended object too, but he was much more frightened of it. When he saw Jason he moved to shield it from view, but Vaas stopped him. As if triggered by it, Vaas and Chewie were gone from sight when the guttural screaming picked up again. Sobbing, the distinct sound of hair being torn out from the roots. Jason entered the room, finding the source of the screaming to be no one else but Oliver. He was sprawled onto the impression velvet couches, most likely tripped. His privateer helmet was somewhere closer by the door, his face pressed violently into his hands where nails were biting into his flesh. And _Keith---_

Keith was hanging from his neck from the base of the disco ball. A leather belt from the go-go dancer's outfit tied securely around his throat and the steel beam that lined the piping of an old emergency fire system. As the ball turned so did he, allowing Jason to get a look at his face. _His peaceful, sleeping face._

"---jesus fucking christ." Volker's voice, a pitch higher than he probably intended because he was genuinely shocked. 

" Jim says the guy tried to convince him to jump the air shaft---" Chewie's voice. "---said that when Jim wouldn't go he went all--- _he went-_ \--" 

"WILL SOMEONE GET THAT UPPITY LITTLE WHORE OUT HERE!?!" Hoyt yelled.

There was a commotion going on, women sobbing, men arguing. Between it all Volker was shouting out some demands. The go-go dancer was screaming. Chewie was talking like an auction dealer, trying to spare someone called Jim. Oliver was hyperventilating, taking out air and spurting it out again like an asthmatic on attack. And Vaas, _Vaas was just fucking laughing._

"---Oliver. Get up. Get up now." Jason was on his knees with him, hands struggling to get a proper hold on all that riot gear. 

"Jason, Jay---he's dead. _Oh my god-_ \--He's dead." Oliver was shaking, falling into himself as if his bones were made from the wood salvaged from a fires. 

"---I know, _Ollie_ but you need to fucking get up. You're causing a scene." He was trying to sound comforting, trying to sound like he had when they were both in primary school and young. 

  
  


Oliver started screaming again. Vaas was now tag-teaming with Hoyt as they started grilling David about how he wasn't watching the new recruit. And you could tell they were enjoying it too, their voices complementing each other in a fancy little crescendo. As if Vaas hadn’t talked about skewering Hoyt in front of thousands of men. As if Hoyt didn’t just get through calling Vaas an inevitable burnout.

_All is fair in screaming and shouting! We have a common enemy! We found the weak link! We are friends again!_

Fists started flying as the go-go dancer attempted to run from his captors. Someone in a foreign tongue cried out in abject horror as if he hadn't just bought a ticket to a human trafficking auction.

_Yes! Death is what scares us! Pump us full of drugs and unwilling whores but by god! Don’t show us a dead body!_

And to these people it was all a spectacle. Some were snapping pictures, some were dialing friends. Others, the majority, just stared. 

_And Jason_

_just_

_snapped._

  
  


" DO YOU WANT TO BE FUCKING DEAD TOO!?" He yelled, yanking Oliver up by the straps of his bulletproof vest. Oliver stood but his knees made a cracking noise, his eyes alighting with unmistakable pain and anguish.

"---do you have any idea how embarrassing this is for my fucking boss? Do you have any idea how embarrassing this is for _me_?" 

Oliver horrifically wasn't following the plan. He looked at Jason as if he had just grown a second head, hands going up in a defensive open-palmed shake as he let all his weight fall. Jason was reminded then of the difference between them. Jason could carry on with this facade, he could continue playing their little pretend game no matter the consequences. But Oliver, he was different. _Oliver was soft._

_I should be feeling this way. I should want to collapse and cry and scream but I_ **_don't._ ** _I just feel fucking angry. I_ **_feel---_ **

"---I want you to take this down, deputy," Jason said, gritting his teeth to sound as convincing as possible. "---when your superior says get it together, _you fucking get it together._ When your superior says to cut the fucking dead body off the high beams, _you_ cut it down. I don't allow weakness in my ranks, recruit. I don't allow disobedience---" 

"I-I-I-I wasn't--" Oliver stopped when a hard fist went into his gut and doubled him over. 

_For Christ's sake, Hoyt is watching. Riley could still be here. Just fucking cut the body down. It's meat now anyway._

"I'm going to repeat myself, deputy and believe me this, that is something I hate doing." Jason started, shaking Oliver's vest. "---you are to follow orders when they're given to you. You are to cut that body down and dispose of it so my boss here doesn't have to look at it. _Do I make myself clear_?" 

Oliver stared at Jason for a long time, tears still streaming down his face. The look he gave wasn't heartbroken. _No, they were far past that now._ There was hate there, unmistakable and hot. It didn't crease his brow, it didn't pallid his complexion. It made him just blank, solid, and unmovable. 

_This is the way things are now._

"---yes, sir. You make yourself clear." 

When Jason turned, he decided it would be best not to look back. If he did, he felt he was not liable to control his reaction. Would he cry, beg for forgiveness? He wasn't sure, the uncertainty of which made him feel all the more raw, more volatile. 

_Who are you, Jason? What kind of man are you?_

In truth he didn't know. The fibers of his personality were always malleable. If he hung around the rich kids, suddenly he liked sparkling water. If he palled around a couple of surfers, he would go out and get a tan. He became what was expected of him, changing with the influence of the highest bidder. 

_What have I become?_

_What's wrong with me?_

_Oh god, what in the fuck is wrong with me?_

The crowd parted from him as if he had the plague. 

**-X-**

Keith grew up with the belief that the world existed on a contingent diagonal. There were people like his father, the wealthy bankers and stockbrokers on one end and on the other was their polar opposite. They would be the beggar types, the same you would see lining the streets of Broadway and Hollywood. They would shake styrofoam cups at you, stare at you through mats of unkempt hair and beards. The kindness you allotted them was not looking, keeping your hands straight on the wheel and your face frontwards as you drove past them on your way out of the parking lot. This diagonal, _this equal ended equilibrium_ , it existed so those in the middle could stay buoyant. The Brodys of the world, the blue collar, _kiss your wife goodbye on the way to work_ types, relied on this mechanic. _They worked to get to where we are but also work to keep themselves from slipping into poverty._

_Yes, this is the way the world works. I live on this side of the diagonal, my friends stay in the middle and I neither know or acknowledge those on the other end._

Now that all this had happened to him, now that he had gotten a chance to know what it was like to both work and toil and suffer, where did he stand on the world's diagonal? How often he thought back on his life in New York, his penthouse with a view. An only child, he told himself the biggest thing he had left to look forward to was his old man's inevitable burnout and the insurance claim that would come after it. Keith would chronicle every cough over the phone, every patted dry line of sweat that arose on his father’s brow during a board meeting. _One step closer to death, he would think. One step closer to that life insurance check._

It was only three weeks after arriving on Rook that he had had the time to recollect on his life before. Living with Buck wasn't always torture. No, the man's work kept him away too much for the degradation to be around the clock. These revelations came to him when he was sat out in the corner of a locked shed, the stink of his own waste making it so that he had to keep his nose pressed into an exposed corner of the metal sheeting where the fresh air could seep in. And when he was here, literally wallowing in filth, he had the time to think of himself. 

_Typical_ that he'd be thinking of himself in a time like this but these are the things that happen when you're alone and waiting to die. He thought of one night stands, college tests he had cheated on and estranged business partners. How many people had he stepped on to get placed in that Ivy League? How many people had studied, _worked_ , only to have Keith Ramsey take the spotlight with a well-written letter from daddy? Reason would come back then, an inevitable sway that said, _the world does not work the way it does in fairy tales_. The occurrences in the world are by happenstance. 

_Buck Hughes is not some divine intervention sent by Christ to help me right the wrongs of my hubris. No, nothing matters. I don't matter. The world has no point. The world is not a diagonal_. 

And then came Jason Brody. Jason who he had met and pitied in college. Jason who could never bring his own beer to the fucking party because _\--uh rent was due this week, man. I'll pay you back later._ Jason was everything Keith's father had told him not to be. Nonaspirational, a student of the arts, everything Jason Brody stood for meant that he would fall later in life. And that was what made this all so unfair. 

_Jason was never supposed to win in life. I was._

Jason Brody was a hero now. At least he was to Daisy and Oliver who would sit back in that cave and just pray that Jason remembered to bring them all something to eat. Jason Brody appeared to set the stars in the sky, raising up the sun when it was time for dawn. Jason Brody was the man who adapts, the man on the higher side of the tipping scales. 

_And me? I was bought and sold like the whores we fucked around with in Bangkok. It’s easy to call Jason a monster, to say he’s wrong for the things he does but honestly? Sometimes I wish I’d stop feeling so fucking useless and do something about it._

He told himself it wasn't envy. He told himself that when they returned to California, _where things made sense_ , everything would fall back into place. Jason would go back to his photography, Daisy would go back to her poetry circle between swimming gigs. And Oliver? Oliver would stagnate. He would blend and dissipate back into that cannabis haze he had always lived in. But the ride over to this party had told him that this wasn't the case. When Vaas had been verbally laying into Keith, Oliver had stagnated but not in the way he used to. The way best to describe it would be the look Grant used to get whenever the National Anthem would come on at ball games. Not a sense of love, but of duty, astringent and unwavering obedience. And Jason, Jason looked at him as if he were something pitiful, _a bum begging on the streets of Broadway._

And when Keith had seen Jim, he had had that glorious feeling of supremacy again. He had felt bigger, stronger, better. He had felt that he was not a sum of the worst things that had happened to him, a Frankenstein collection of the unreciprocated cruelty of Buck Hughes. He was on a higher plane, a better place. He was on the higher side of the tipping scale, he was not as damaged as he thought. And wouldn't the reasonable thing to do would be to exchange some of that good favor for the likes another? Was that not the rules of the jungle, to find and protect those who were unable to protect themselves? 

_I must be more like Jason Brody._

Keith couldn't fathom the horror in Jim's eyes when he told him he was safe. He told him that he was not walking into another rape or beating but into the arms of a friend. They would escape together. He didn't know how or how far they would go but he would be doing _something._ He would be away from Jason and his unnerving metamorphosis. He would be away from Vaas and all his demands and his rebukes. He would be away from Oliver and all his statuesque indifference, his head bows, and low mumbles. He would start over, he would help someone out for a change. It would be better to die, running for the exit than to sit here and wait to be found out. _Sit and wait for Vaas to get tired of all of them and push them into some ravine._ This go-go dancer, this used whore, he was the answer. 

But obedience runs deep, when you have learned it as a survival tactic, it becomes all you know, it becomes the fabric of your behavior. Keith had long learned to bow when Buck entered a room, groveling on hands and knees so as not to risk the consequences that came with eye contact. He had seen that same reaction when Jim had whipped around his head to scream. There was that same desperation, that same eagerness to please in his eyes when he called out his master's name. _Markus!_ The only word on his lips left legible and it is the one assigned to the man who beats him, the man who has trained him the same way one would train a bitch to sire pups. 

To make matters worse, Keith had attempted to silence Jim with his hands, covering his mouth and getting a bite that left no mark because it came with no teeth. They had tussled for a minute, allowing Keith to grab hold of the long BDSM belt that lined the inner workings of Jim's leather spine. He flashed Keith a scant white ass as he left, a pink pump rolling off one ankle as he shambled for the door. 

_And what will I say when Markus comes to see what's oppressed his prime bitch? I can lie and say he's hysterical and overworked. I can deny and hope David or Oliver sweep in to come help but I---_

He was weak. He was weak and crumbled at the onslaught of confrontation. Running away was easy, slipping into the background was wise. _But what would he do by himself? What would he hope to accomplish?_ He imagined himself out in the jungle by his lonesome, climbing trees in a vain pursuit of coconuts that had little water in them. Even worse, he would be going out with no weaponry or tools to defend himself, the guns that lined the utility belt of his uniform having been stripped of their ammunition just in case _he thought to get cute._

No, the decision had come to him surprisingly quickly. He thought of the cartoons he would watch in his youth, a worn wash image of Sylvester popping a lightbulb over his head just as he hatched a plan to catch tweety. _Dying. Yes, dying would be easy._ It was only after this revelation that he started to panic. The primal sensation, the natural and inept desire to live at all costs, it comes to us in the most inopportune times. _Who would his father pass his legacy onto? Who would his mother rely on in her older age?_ The more he thought of these things the more he realized they were inconsequential. The Keith Ramsey that had grown up halfway between New York and Los Angeles had long since died his quiet death. His body remained immortalized in that shack on the south side of this island, his voice going with it. 

_And what about right now? What's here at this moment?_

In the other room there were about a baker's dozen of men just like Buck Hughes. Men who took, men who killed, men who tortured. Among them were women looking for a nice house pet, aging time shareholders who wanted something to replace their last husband. Even if they didn't realize who he was, even if Jim's accusations of deceit would go unheeded, how could he approach them? How could he, after suffering this last defeat, think to stand and walk forward again? They are everywhere now. _These evil men, the men who wish to harm you, they rule the world now. You have become the weak link, you are on the wrong side of the world's tipping scales._

_If I go home, what will I say? Will I go back to work, will I marry and have children? How do I get back what I lost here, what am I losing at this moment? I'm alone. I was always alone._

Slim Jim was getting accosted by Markus outside, the man thought he was on another one of his drug-addled panic attacks. If Keith knew this, if he knew that he had time to maybe slip out himself, perhaps he would have done so. But there are times when variables don't matter anymore, they become useless and vapid, _maybes_ rather than _actual_ options. Keith thought of Jason as he climbed the tabletop used to deal cards and cut coke. He thought of how he had been their sophomore year in college, the same year Jason had taken to wearing army boots for every occasion. Keith thought of what Jason would say when he learned what became of his fairweather friend, the man he knew only from behind shot glasses and poker tables. He thought of how Jason and Vaas would laugh when they heard the news, the two of them sharing a tender spot on the right side of living. Keith didn't realize he was slipping, falling. 

Death came like a dream.


	15. Que Sera Sera.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Que sera, sera (hybrid phrase deriving from both spanish and italian colloquialisms) - What will be, will be.

_ Calm. I need to calm down.  _

Words that were easier said than done. For even now he was beginning to feel the room shrinking, his pulse quickening with every beat of the low bass in the stereo system. He felt like the caught hare,  _ the stuck pig,  _ the prey animal waiting for the coming strike. Once or twice he closed his eyes for composure, rolling his fingers into slick palms laden in sweat inside their leather gloves. There was no peace to be found here, for he realized that Keith's face had been fixated to the inside of his eyelids. 

_ Dead. Dead. You let another one of them die. First it was Grant. Then it was Liza. Now it is Keith. Who's next, Jason? Who are you gonna fucking kill next?  _

The decent thing to do would be to turn back, he thought. A good person would go back there against the odds and stand by his best friend.  _ A good person would quit lying.  _

"---if any of our customers ask, this was a lap service gone wrong--" Hoyt pressed a crisp bill into Jason’s palm, American money by the color of it. Jason gave it right back, not bothering to check its worth. "---auto  _ ero- _ -auto what have you--" 

" Autoerotic asphyxiation." Jason corrected, suppressing a laugh when that same dollar bill was used to wipe clean the sweat beading at Volker's forehead. 

" I know what I fucking said." Hoyt snapped, looping an arm around Jason's shoulders and eclipsing him back into his stink of aftershave and nervous sweat. "You are to tell them that what they saw was the handy work of an overzealous nutjob, he lost his mind with fucking lust--" 

Jason idled, ruminated on the sad fact that Keith had never in his life been  _ lost to lust _ . Mild randiness,  _ maybe.  _ But lust fares poorly on those who haven't the patience to seek it out. Keith had often told Jason that sex was some trivial back and forth between a man and a woman, the human parasocial equivalent of monkeys grooming each other in tall trees. Marriage was the social construct that destroyed the beauty of sex according to Keith. The invention of marriage was to market sex, it was a way women controlled men and the tirade would go on and on. 

_ But how did he feel afterward? How did Keith look at sex post-Buck Hughes? Jason reasoned this didn't matter now. Both of these men were dead.  _

_ That's right. Hoyt Volker is still fucking speaking to me.  _

"---though it does lack refinement.  _ Personally _ , I would have liked to see you think of our image. Reprimanding a fucking boot in the middle of a presentation show is tasteless but I suppose the situation was unusual, right? If I hadn't known any better, I would have said you were taking after Vaas--" 

" I am nothing like Vaas, sir." 

For whatever the reason, this made Hoyt smile. He patted Jason on the back, so hard that the healed over scars on his back began to itch. The look he gave Jason was vapid and archaic, the closest simile Jason could think of would be the one his father had given him when he had shot his first buck _. You're finally getting it, kid. You've got a long way to go but you're on your way to greatness.  _

"---well in that case, Mr. Patt. I think it's time we stepped aside and talked business, don't you agree?" 

**\- X -**

For the first time in ten years, Jason Brody didn't want to drink. The shots were there and he took them in order to remain cordial, but he never savored them. When he knocked them back, he treated it as if they were the cough syrup his mother would make him swallow on his sick days. A necessary evil, a polite decree much in the nature of eating the meal that’s presented to you at the dinner party. Volker had been very vague on his expectations of Marshal Patt. In the privacy of his office, back in that cramped little bay-windowed suite, Volker had only asked for one thing.  _ Loyalty.  _

Apparently, the pirates and their excursions were not nearly as tidy as they liked to think. The disappearance of Paolo and Fransico had deeply disturbed their commanding officers, so much so that there had been an investigation for their whereabouts the moment they had failed to call in the night they'd died. Even more suspicious, you'd hear about random armories going missing due to Rakyat involvement. And nine out of ten times this bad news would always come from one person.  _ Third in command: Carlos De Reyes.  _

_ Privateer outpost has been taken by Jason Brody!  _ **_Report courtesy of Mr. De Reyes._ **

_ Rakyat have hung and tortured a group of six on patrol!  _ **_Reported by Carlos._ **

_ Rakyat warriors, headed again by our friend Snow White, have secured an entire shipment of weaponry for their cause! _ **_A foreword, from your neighbor Carlos._ **

And so this trend would continue but with the arrival of Snow White and his seemingly unending support for the rebels, it did not mark anything that was said out of the realm of possibility. It was the man's job, after all. Vaas being the go to for shipments of new slaves, offense and defense on the shores and general fucking mayhem, no one expected him to be the newsboy on top of that. But still, it was real fucking strange. 

_ Why was Carlos still present in almost every meeting they had? Why did Carlos know the names and origin of almost every ditzy headed whore that passed through these transfer gates? Why did he know the amount they were worth, why did he know the exact weight of narcotics passing through checkpoints? _

Because Vaas can't be fucking trusted to keep a story straight. They all knew it. While Vaas was perfect in terms of keeping order and fear amongst his ranks, he was not a businessman. He could raise armies but not cattle. The lot of them, all the privateers, would wait for the inevitable news that Vaas had finally snapped and blown up an entire compound. There were even times when shipments of drugs didn't reach them because Vaas plainly and simply did not give a shit and let his underlings smoke it all. And there would be ramifications,  _ sure. _ But what the fuck could they do? These men followed someone who did not give a shit about threats to his life or person. Even threats to his pay or property would be met with oblong glances and arguments. And to make matters worse, everyone who ever worked for Vaas seemed to just  _ adore  _ him. They'd ride around in their red shirts and matching outfits like some kind of brotherhood and swear allegiance to the boss or  _ El Jefe _ as they called him. The Privateers were almost always teetering on the edge of losing control but Hoyt had one in.  _ Drugs _ . Every single last one of them, including El jefe, was absolutely comatose on the supply. That was how they fell in line after all.  _ Threaten to cut their coke supply and everyone is singing hail marys.  _

But it still wasn't enough. They were on a remote island that had little to no surrounding support systems. The privateers were privately owned save for one military contact Hoyt had gained in his youth but how would one go about justifying a military strike on a bunch of island-burnt meth heads and their chanting natives? How would Volker convince his former military personnel, who had been trained to do nothing but intimidate and kill, to cut coke and film ransom videos? No, there had to be underlings in this thing. You had to have people who were willing to do grunt work for little pay and shit drugs. 

And although he did not say it or allude to it,  _ Vaas scared Hoyt _ . This was not a Frankenstein meets the creature type of fear. Hoyt had known somewhere deep within himself that Vaas had come to him the way that he was. The first time Hoyt had ever met Vaas he looked as if he had been nearly scalped on his left side, blood staining every inch of him as he carried along the decapitated head of some deceased tribe member. He had come to Volker already bilingual but appeared to pick up languages like French and Spanish in his sleep. He was inhumane,  _ to say the least _ , too hyper aware for someone who was supposedly raised on a remote island. He was never intended to be the second figurehead in this enterprise, he just made himself that way through his persistent violence. He was supposed to remain docile, he was supposed to be grateful and see his employer as his saint.  _ This was how business worked.  _

"---so you want me to kill him, sir? You want me to kill Vaas?"

Hoyt smirked at Jason, cutting a line of coke with a credit card that read its belonging to a Mr. Cameron Snow. "---killing a man like that doesn't rid us of a dictator, Mr. Patt. It makes a fucking martyr." 

Jason contemplated the idea of someone like Volker thinking Vaas a dictator.  _ Hadn't that word been thrown around at camp? Hadn't these accusations of power hunger and lust been thrown across the table from the other side? _ The lines were becoming blurry again, the perpetual borders of right and wrong taking the same shape as these neat piles of fine powder. He did not need coaxing to take them when he did, he rolled up the dollar bill he had refused earlier and inhaled one line of substance through one held open nostril. 

"---a fucking martyr--- _ what a thought- _ -" Jason snorted, rubbing his nose in attempt to silence all the burning. Behind them some violin tune played on a passing record, an eerie sound that was flat and contemplative.  _ Tasteful, perhaps.  _ This would be tasteful in Paris or Munich, playing here the song sounded like a funeral throng. 

"---no, to take down Vaas we need to take out his image, I think. His men need to be reminded who is really in control, who is really calling the shots---" 

" And I'm the guy to do that?" Jason remarked, rubbing his gums with the brunt of his finger. "---I'm the guy to send them back to your favor?" 

"You're exactly the man, Mr. Patt. A free agent sent by the very industry that wishes to keep them all employed. I sent them a more capable leader, a more structured general. Why, one only needs to look so far as to Mr. De Reyes and see that Vaas's leadership has grown faulty." Hoyt dipped down and snorted down his own line of coke, came back with the quickness of a zip tie coming closed. 

"--and tell me, _ Marshall _ , don't you think it's real fucking strange that we're not hearing anything about Jason Brody in all this mess? Isn't it all just convenient that Rakyat is rumored to move in on Vaas and that compound and suddenly-- _ -Snow White has disappeared. _ " 

Jason stared long and hard at Hoyt, taking the silver tray of coke under his fingers without ever looking to where it was going. The high was feverish but it kept him lucid, almost ever-present. Colors began to become more vibrant, movements under the light looking like jabs rather than gestures. 

"---what's in this for me, Hoyt? I take down Vaas, convince his men we're on their side, and get them back to work and then what? I become the new head of production? I'm the new pirate king and the process starts again when I've done something you don't like later down the track." 

Hoyt gave Jason a look that said he wasn't going to consider responding unless his partner was properly sedated. He made an open-palmed wave, a go on sort of gesture that said he thought it rude for anyone he kept company with not to take his drugs. Jason complied, inhaling this time with the other nostril and still getting the same familiar sting. When he looked up, he saw Volker had just finished rolling his eyes. 

" And what alternative do you have, huh? What other shores are you docking your fucking loyalties?” He snorted, laughed. “---what? With Vaas? Vaas Montenegro?” 

Volker's turn to stare long and hard, his fingers laced together atop his desk as the watch on his right wrist began to idle over mid-afternoon. He smiled back at Jason, a closed mouth sort of gleam that looked like it had come entirely from a space of pity. 

" Do you honestly think that man thinks of you as his equal?" Volker started, eerily calm. "---do you think he's not every bit as cunning and vile as his cunt of a fucking sister? But you wouldn't know, right? You've fallen for the same trick twice, you'll fall for anyone who tells you you're fucking special and worth a shit. That's your generation, Mr. Brody. It's your fucking race, it's the American in you. You live off of fucking praise. "

Jason very visibly tensed, began to think long and hard about the knife that rested strapped and ready against his right ankle. He could kill him now, but what would be the retaliation? What would become of Oliver and Daisy if news of his little slip up meant that civil war was going to be raging on the entire North island? What would his inaction do for his own life? Suddenly he could not think, could not act. Volker seemed to relish in this, pressed himself closer on propped elbows and crossed arms. 

"---now, if I were you, I'd be thinking a little bit about where my loyalties lie. I'm guessing Vaas has something you want, a girl maybe. Maybe he's sent you here to kill me so you can rescue a friend--" He trailed off, taking the silver tray of cocaine back into his field of study with slow and careful resolve. "---but here is someone who not only killed your own brother but very nearly killed you. Several fucking times, I think." 

" I don't need a fucking history lesson." 

"No, you don't. I couldn't fucking give it to you anyway. You killed the best history teacher I ever knew."

The silence that grew between them now was palatable, he could taste it on his tongue, Jason could move around the quiet as if it were an improper dance partner. And in spite of everything, there was no obvious fury in Volker's voice and features. It was in this moment that Jason realized with undeniable certainty how old Volker truly was. Crow's feet cornered his eyes, laugh lines permeated the upper corners of his nose in a permanent snarl. All these observations made Jason realize that just like everyone else in this god-forsaken place,  _ Hoyt Volker was human _ . The passing of Buck Hughes, no matter how necessary for Jason's survival, had  _ hurt  _ Volker. There was someone on this wretched earth who still thought fondly of Buck, someone who missed him. The thought was enough to make Jason feel sick, it made him regret the two hits of coke. 

"---how long have you known?" Jason asked, wanting desperately not to think of Buck Hughes because he knew it would inevitably bring him back to Keith. Beside them the record began to sheepishly skip alongside  _ Fur Elise _ , the needle on the record sputtering over the carried keys to the fall into g minor. 

"---the deputy in there." Volker sniffed, shuffling a packet of cards Jason had not noticed he had. "He called you  _ Jason _ once or fucking twice during his little breakdown, no? I wouldn't know you by looking at you, Mr. Brody but I do recall your seasoned history with Vaas. I suppose the stars aligned just then." 

"---my seasoned history?" 

Hoyt smiled, laid down a deck of cards in two piles all face-up. “---so he hasn’t told you. How interesting.” 

“---told me what?” 

Hoyt considered this for a while, swiveled his mouth to the side, and clicked his teeth. "Let’s just say Vaas has an interesting track record when it comes to _ fairweather obsessions.  _ He likes to keep pets now and then, little gifts from overseas. When you landed here, when he first got a look at your group, I can remember him asking me to keep someone that fits your description. A pretty white boy arrives with him, someone just so happens to call him Jason. You see my fucking dilemna." Hoyt paused, slided one deck toward Jason with a Joker card facing upfront and vigilant. "---for all expected purposes, Mr. Brody. You were meant to be a gift. A present from me to him. Oh---you should have heard him when he learned his sister got a hold of you. Holy fucking shit. " 

If it were even possible, Jason found himself hating Vaas even more. He took the cards in his hands, studied the smiling jackal of a creature at the front of them that looked eerily like the man who dealt them. He attempted to search himself farther, attempted to reason why he had ever wanted so badly to bed Vaas. He attempted to understand why this sudden realization had changed  _ nothing. _ He still wanted him. In what way he wasn't sure, but the pressure was there on his chest. A burning sort of want, a need to reclaim what one is owed by right. 

_ Vaas wanted me. Vaas always wanted me. Vaas wants me right now. _

_ What the fuck is wrong with me? _

"---you never answered my question." Jason insisted, shuffling the deck.  _ Change the subject. Change it.  _ "---what do I get out of helping you?" 

Volker laid down three cards, waited for Jason to stop shuffling before responding. "---what is it you want, Mr. Brody? Money, status, power?" 

“I want my brother. You said you had my brother.” 

“---did I?” 

“---the nineteen-year-old, the dark-haired one you mentioned earlier. Is his name Riley?” 

Volker paused, resting two cards down. “---why the fuck do you think I’d ask him his name? Do you think I give a fuck what the help calls itself before its put to work?” 

  
  


Jason stood up. And Volker shouted. “ YOU SIT THE FUCK DOWN! DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!? DO YOU KNOW THE KIND OF MEN I HAVE STATIONED HERE?!” 

Jason did no such thing. “--fucking call them in here, Hoyt. Call the men you have stationed here and tell them how you want me to axe someone  _ you _ fucking hired. Tell them who I really am, tell them I fucked you over with nothing but a bow and a fucking walkie-talke. Tell them you’re asking for  _ my _ help.” 

Hoyt stared long and hard. Jason smiled. “---are you scared of me,  _ Mr. Volker _ ?” 

_ What the fuck is wrong with me?  _

As if written in some kind of agreement, the silence between them meant that they were back to talking business. Volker gave a silent nod when Jason sat back down and picked up his cards. He seemed peevish and alert but at least he was taken down a fucking peg. 

"---your brother, he has ransom payers in California. We called your mother not too long ago then---" 

"---Riley for Vaas." 

" And what happens after that? You sail off into the sunset? After we've destroyed the pirates, who will lead them to work?" 

"That's not my problem." 

" It is if you want your baby brother coming to you in one whole piece, Mr. Brody." 

"---if you honestly think I'm staying in this fucking place to be your shit handler you've got another thing coming." 

Hoyt scoffed. "---say, where are your friends, Mr. Brody? The other cuts of meat you came in here with. Don't tell me one of them just fucking died on my stripper pole." 

Jason did not respond and Hoyt laughed. 

"---what a fucking world, Mr. Brody. God,  _ what a fucking world. _ " 

They sat there playing crazy eights of all things, the record beside them skipping again. Jason was reminded eerily of an old-timey bar, a western with the grated film and music score.  _ But this is real, my god this is real.  _ And finally, Jason Brody could wait no more. 

"---and if I help you, what will happen to my other friends? The ones Vaas has." 

Volker smiled when Jason laid down the cards. A fold, an immovable statement. Hoyt laid down his, a royal flush.

"---well, Mr. Brody. I don't envy your position at all. You're running out of fucking cards." 

**-X-**

They had let him go. 

Every single one of them, regardless of rank, _ commander, captain, or chief, _ they let him pass. Some of them nodded, their eyes hidden behind reflective visors that made them look like living mirrors. Others, the less in prestige, simply kept an about-face that never turned or acknowledged his presence. _ Jason was respected here, he was appreciated here.  _

Back home he was a no-account slacker juggling the odd job or two. At Citra's temple, he was the false prophet, the lamb led to slaughter. At Vaas's compound, he was the forced trojan horse, the secret weapon. But here, by Hoyt Volker's decree, Jason Brody was someone of grand importance. 

_ But not you, Jason. You forget yourself. Marshall Patt is someone of grand importance. This is just another one of your little games, another mask you are dawning. How long are you going to lie like this?  _

_ Who are you, Jason? What kind of man are you? _

Jason made it a point to make his exit in the largest, most extravagant off-road jeep he could find. To his surprise, no one stopped him or asked him where he would be going. Even as he drove away, the sun at his shoulder setting into a tangerine halo of light, he saw no one following him. The party, at least the showman's part of it, was over with. Men like Vaas, men who came primarily to deal with the keep and sale of a product, they had long vacated the area with the rejects who had failed to make the market. Those who remained had made their purchases were set to celebrate that until dawn. There would be drinks, drugs and whores. They would think no more of the funny men in red who escorted them in. They would think even less of the young man who had hung himself from the banister in the lounge. They would slip into a dream-like state, a dirtied and omnipresent state of euphoria. Jason was reminded of clowns after the circus, the image of a candy-striped tent deflating as all the worker bees dislodged its main pillar. 

_ We are done here. We shall wreak our havoc elsewhere.  _

In truth, he did not know where he was going. Only that he had to go somewhere far from here. Once or twice he found himself thinking of Paolo. Jason would drive up onto some secluded beach just like the ending scene in  _ The Shawshank Redemption. _ There he would find a birdie, seated for two all prime and yellow. Paolo would be there, waxing the front and he'd smile and say that Jason had made it just in time. 

_ " Finally, mio Fratello. Cuba, she awaits!"  _

Maybe he would steal one of the native's fishing boats and try his luck in the open sea. He'd row until his arms lost all their strength, his body expiring under the heat of a cloudless sky that cooked him alive for the seagulls to eat. 

_ All better options for what I must do. All better options than what has to be done.  _

Jason Brody had never been good with options. Growing up the middle child, you learn quickly to go with the flow. You are the center point, the undeniable axis. If you're not being ignored, you're diffusing something that threatens your ability to blend in.  _ Keith and Dad are fighting over a tennis match. Mom's having another one of her silent breakdowns because Riley is teething and won't eat.  _ You learn to be flexible, you learn to be soft and comforting but stern and unmoving in the same breath. 

_ But what was he to do now? What, in all of hell, was he supposed to do now?  _

He got another image of Grant in his junior cub's scout uniform, his sash laden with badges across the chest. His face was morphed, blended with both the older and younger versions of himself. 

_ " Go with your gut, Jason! That's what the cub master says!"  _

Jason’s gut told him that blood was thicker than the water of friendship. His alliances should always go back to Riley. He had already let one brother die, what was he going to do when he lost the other one? But what good was Hoyt Volker's word? He refused to let Jason see Riley, only giving him a vague idea that the nineteen-year-old in lockup had a mother back in California. Who is to say that when Jason pulls this gross little deed, Volker wouldn't turn around and say he is needed for another fortnight of service?

_ I just need you to ship this out. Yes, then you get your brother back. Oh no, when did I say you both could leave? Great fucking luck.  _

He would finally have that lifelong career his mother told he ought to have. Jason got an image of himself slaving over a conveyor belt, his sweaty palm over a machine that pressed Hoyt's face over a dozen pot brownies at a time. Meanwhile, Riley's face first between the legs of some vagabond in Sweden. He's toothless, all his hair shaved under a long blonde wig. Before he goes to the great beyond, Vaas hangs Daisy and Oliver from a palm tree and uses their innards like piñatas. Or even better, Volker does Jason in and puts a bullet in his teeth the minute Vaas stops breathing. 

And then of course, Carlos plays none the wiser. " _ Jefe, I swear to you, I had no fucking idea. These men, they do evil things. Did I ever tell you the definition of self-interest---"  _

Option B: He stays with the team who seems to be a lot more organized and aware of the coming civil war. The pirates have more men, their revolution is already on the go. Oliver and Daisy continue to be his ransom and get to go on and live shit lives back at camp. Cause Vaas has already made it clear that Jason isn't going back home and he treats Oliver like a fucking trained chihuahua. All the while, Riley goes on and waits in his little corner of hell,  _ if he is even there.  _ Maybe he gets a few beatings for all of Jason's effort, Hoyt takes his ancient dick from his pants and forces it down Riley's dying throat as retribution for dearly departed Bambi. And Jason stands outside the compound, shooting down privateers with Vaas. Vaas grins at him, tells him what he wants to hear and he finally, _ finally  _ lets Jason fuck him for his good behavior. 

_ And above us all the stars keep their counsel. In Paris they still make black and white short films. In Bangkok they still have swing parties. In California they build more Coffee shops.  _

What the fuck happened to Citra? Maybe in all her superstition and wisdom, she was right about all of this. What is to become of the natives who Jason had sworn to protect, the people who he would change tires and fetch water for on the streets? They sit on the sidelines and watch as their land is torched by gunfire. Every now and then one of their own gets caught in the blaze, a warrior who Citra had yet again brainwashed into thinking he was the chosen one. All the while Daisy continues to look at Jason as if he's Satan incarnate. Oliver says less and less and spends more private time with Vaas who thinks he's just  _ delightful.  _

_ And the world keeps turning. Day becomes night. World leaders in foriegn countries wage war. His mother goes into an old person’s home. In Stockholm they have grand concerts. In Las Vegas, gamblers bet away life savings and money saved for mortgage.  _

Citra and Vaas become one and the same. They use the same fucking tactics, they even wear the same hairstyle. Vaas straddles her and looks intimate. He has his hands around her neck, choking the life out of her as she chants all about the prophecy of Wakhama. Carlos washes the blood off of his hands in a river basin. Keith sinks deeper into the watery grave of Buck Hughes, their bodies are eaten by the same fish and they swim the same current for generations to come.  _ Together forever. Inseparable. _ Liza's bones are used to make Citra another necklace. Grant’s skull washes up on the north island and pirates use it to play soccer. And mom stays back in California and wonders just what in the living fuck happened to her boys. 

_ And all the while the earth grows older. The climates never change because nothing changes here on Rook. Here there are no winters with snow. No Autumns with red leaves. A forever summer, an endless hell. The sun burns hotter. Mercury goes into retrograde. _

It was all too much. All of it. Jason was losing control of the road, his eyes streaming with the first genuine tears he had cried in years.  _ All of this. Everything _ . Everything that had ever gone wrong was his fault. His dad was dead because of him. He was too demanding and unwilling to share his attention. His mother hated him for getting a shit degree and then leading a shit life. His older brother, accustomed to cleaning up after him, had died protecting his life even though it was worth shit. His best friend, the very one who had faced physical torture for him, now feared and hated him. His brother's fiance, once the kindest person in the world, now counted the seconds until he left her line of sight. The friend he looked up to the most, the wealthy banker, had no choice but to hang himself in front of a crowd of people. His younger brother, who thought the world of him, was more than likely someone's fuck toy. His tribe, his adopted people, they thought him a disgrace. 

_ All of this and more because I wanted to go fucking skydiving. All of this happened because I wanted to go on a shitty fucking vacation with my shitty friends on my shitty MasterCard. That's what I do. I fuck everything up.  _

_ God, what am I going to do?  _

_ What do I do? _

**\- X -**

He could not recall when he had decided to arrive here. In his half-semester of undergraduate psychology, he had learned that the human mind often gravitates toward the places that bring us comfort. Maybe it's your grandmother's house, the beach where you had your first beer, the point is that your mind has assigned this place as a station of safety. You boyishly think that the secret to happiness lies tucked away in these places of your youth. You only need to return to it to find it hiding away, a pansy pressed fresh between the pages of one of your old books. It's hiding there, waiting for you to find it again.  _ You just need to go back and look for it.  _

These places did not exist on Rook. Every square inch of this place was pockmarked with some form of trauma. On this beach, Jason had scalped a man. On the other he rose from the water like the Jaws monster and sunk a blade into a man's sternum. There were no memories here that spelled comfort, no places he could hide for a reprieve. The party house, the same one Vaas had ordered him to celebrate the taking back of Fort Anchor, had been his last known place of composure. It was the last place he could recall not thinking of Oliver, Liza or Riley. It was the last place in recent memory where he was left to just  _ be. _ No one was asking him of anything, no one was partitioning him for espionage. Jason had simply laid there on his stomach in the dark while Vaas came in and tended to his wounded back. 

It was the last time it had well and truly been just the two of them. No fights breaking out, no privateers infiltrating or scars bringing Jason back to nightmares. It was the first time he supposed he had ever really seen Vaas. A moment, he now realized, he was constantly trying to get back. To see and be seen by another person, the thought seemed revolutionary. 

Not that it fucking mattered now, the lights were on and he didn't have to guess who it was that was occupying the space. Jason actually felt angry when he threw the jeep into park and closed the door. Angry not because he was inevitably going to have to answer some questions but because he was beginning to feel like there was nowhere he could turn to catch his breath. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say. Someone upstairs, he could not tell who, parted the sheer curtains and quickly closed them again. 

Too late now, Jay. You've been spotted. They'll be telling those in charge that you're ready to clock in for your third shift as shit-flinger.

To humor himself, Jason rang the doorbell that had the audacity to chime a segment of  _ Swan Lake Act. 10 _ mid-rise. Behind the closed door, Jason could hear someone screaming and glass breaking. Unmistakably David. 

" FOR FUCKS SAKE! CAN WE UNINSTALL THAT SHIT ALREADY!?!" 

To Jason's surprise, it was Chewie who answered the door. He looked taken aback as soon as he saw him, as if anyone else would come knocking here in the middle of nowhere past midnight. 

"---Jason, how did you--" 

" I was in the neighborhood." 

"---well, look man. We didn't mean to leave you but Volker's guys would have been suspicious if we--"

"---where's Vaas?" 

Chewie stopped himself, narrowly moving out of the way when Jason darted past him and inside. He could see the broken glass now, a beer bottle that had been thrown up into the high beams of crafted wood and ivory crowning. David himself sat reclined on a chair, one leg pivoted atop a coffee table. How frigid he got when Jason came in through, his stature suggesting he was well and ready to make a run for the door if the need arose.

"---was that Vaas upstairs? In the window?" Jason started, making a go for the stairs. Chewie stopped him, hands at the ready. 

"---Oliver is upstairs, dude." He said, looking and sounding as if Jason were talking too loud in a church. "---listen, man. He's real shaken up---" 

"Oh." Jason started, eyes squinting at the door that still had a sliver of lamplight leaking from it. Chewie grabbed him by the shoulder, his entire hand eclipsing around it twice over. “---shit. Is he alright?” 

“---yeah, man. He’s a tough dude.” Chewie started. "---look, Jason. We all just came here to get our head straight for the night. A lotta crazy shit when down and uh--" He paused. "---are you okay?" 

Jason shrugged Chewie's hand off, found the idea that now of all times a pirate was showing him his humanity.  _ Where the fuck was all the apologies and condolences when it was Grant who was shot? Where were their attempts at friendship when they were shooting him between the fucking trees?  _ Jason glanced at David who looked like he was on the toilet taking a shit. "---I'm fine, Chewie."

"---look, have a beer with us or something." 

"---I don't want a beer, Chewie." 

Silence. David stood slowly and started moving toward the kitchen where he knew his rifle was waiting at attention. Chewie pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled sharply. Jason could just tell he was attempting to formulate proper words, sentiments and sympathies he had not had to use for some time.  _ God, he’s actually trying. _ Jason thought. 

"---I know this don't mean shit comin' from someone like me but---" Another contemplative pause. "---I'm sorry.  _ Real  _ sorry about your boy. That was--- _ I dunno _ \---that was really fucked up what happened." 

Jason moved away from Chewie, backing up to get a nice glance at whatever the fuck David was doing in the kitchen. Chewie noticed but pretended not to. The light on the upstairs bedroom remained on, the floorboards creaking as a body began to press itself to the door.  _ Listening.  _

"---we poured one out for him, man." Chewie started again, moving into Jason's line of sight. "---he's buried out at lookout point. Flowers grow there a lot, it's out by the beach and uh---it's nice, you know---" 

"---I really appreciate that and it's great but I really need to find Vaas. " Jason said, anger resurging in him like a fever. Too quickly was Jason reminded of the first days of his father's passing, schoolmates crowded around him with cards and solemn nods. Every now and then a relative would come up and kiss his cheek, tell him to be strong. God, Jason hated pity. By the looks of him, Chewie was running out of it.  _ Good.  _

"---you want to see Vaas?" He smiled at Jason but it was not a humorous sort of grin. It was the kind of smile you give right after hearing about someone's outrageous behavior, a tall tale. I can't fucking believe this sort of smirk. "---I mean, Oliver's upstairs, man. If you want to---" 

"I appreciate it, man. Really, I do. Just---" He stopped, composing himself. "---where the fuck is Vaas?" 

The weight on the floorboard upstairs released its pressure, the bed creaking as a body fell atop its springs. In this moment, David and Chewie both saw Jason Brody in a new light. What that meant, neither of them really knew. 

"---in the back there's a sleepout. I guess the old folks kept it for when the grandkids visited." Chewie said, turning away from Jason. "---he had a call or something but he's in there." 

Without nodding or thanking him, Jason made his way out the door. 


	16. Le Petit Mort.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Le Petit Mort (french. common euphemism for sexual climax) - The Little Death
> 
> Extended: "The brief loss or weakening of consciousness."

He had been so distracted, so taken away in his own misery, he hadn't realized the rain had come. It had been there, ruminating in the dark clouds over the horizon since the day started. Only now did Jason realize his hair was sticking to his forehead, his jacket growing slick with the weight of water and encumbered leather. He slipped it off the same way he would if he were stepping into a shower, leaving it in a discarded heap at his feet. The flimsy, black t-shirt that they had given him this morning clung to him like a second skin. He moved through the distortion like a dream, pleasantly reminding himself that here was a place where the rain came like a vindictive ex. _ Fast, strong, hard, and then gone within an hour's time. _ Maybe she'd be back again, maybe not. Nature liked to keep reminding him that despite everything, she was still in control.

The sleepout was nestled amongst a collection of overgrown poppy flowers and a neglected vegetable garden. Vines had snaked themselves over the plastic garters that once held labels that read things like _ tomato and cucumber _ . Jason could recall seeing something like it in his youth, a vague memory of Geppetto's workshop sitting in the belly of the whale floated into his consciousness like a dream. Only now, the shackles on the roof and exterior were the same shade of blue that had been on Wendy's nightgown as she set flight toward Neverland. These thoughts were tumultuous, to say the least, he shrugged them away the same way he would bat a fly buzzing around his ear. 

_ I should think of more important things. Things that actually matter.  _

He thought of Hoyt's offer from this afternoon, thought of Keith's skin paling as all the blood from his head soon began to pool to his toes. His neck stretched upward by a belt that was beginning to twist at its base from all the pressure. Riley, naked somewhere and tied to an old water heater. Citra wearing Liza's skull like a headpiece. 

_ Maybe thinking about what is important is too broad. I should think practically, I should think of things I can do now. Not things that have and could happen.  _

He attempted then to fill his head with thoughts that were practical, thoughts that were inevitably going to lead to action. He thought of killing Vaas, knowing vaguely that this would be his second attempt at it. He thought of a lifetime on Rook serving Hoyt for the off chance that his brother would be kept healthy and living. He thought of flying far from here, Paolo making a nose dive for the ocean and pulling back up at the last minute. 

_ "Almost had you there, amico!"  _

Before he really knew it he had been standing there with his feet planted firmly on the  _ welcome _ mat for nearly five minutes. Inside the sleeper was deathly quiet, the only sound coming from it the whine of radio waves dying and then sparking to life again. 

_ What am I doing? What the fuck is this going to accomplish?  _

The notion waved heavily upon him. It sat on his shoulders, coiled itself around his chest like a clever viper that had found a snack. Despite these latest revelations, Vaas was still the enemy. He behaved in that primal meticulous manner all animals did. That indifferent behavior that said that all things come to those who wait and act. All things come to those who realize what they are and accept it. 

_ I am an evil man and I do evil things.  _

By the time he had rapped his knuckles over the sun-stained paint of that door, he had halfway reasoned it would be wise to give up. The clouds that had once so vapidly gathered in the far east began to part just quickly enough to reveal a moon that brandished a full ring of light. The light was infrequent,  _ distant _ , then the downpour started again. The electric pull of rain, the threat of a random tropical storm, these things eclipsed everything else.

Jason felt cold. 

He knocked again, the radio got louder. Feeling quite literally at a loss, Jason let himself in. 

“---and when the fuck did I say you could come in?” Vaas was sitting at the center of a large bed, a maroon duvet cushioning his crossed legs as he sat bolt upright with no suggestion of leisure. In his hands was the radio, an archaic looking thing with a dial at the top that flashed each time he changed the station. For a moment he caught a frequency, a garbled impression of a man speaking to another. Vaas stopped himself, his face twitching when the channel went out. Above them there was a rather dramatized photograph of Paris made up to look like an overgrown pencil sketch, glow in the dark stars falling from their scotch tape keep. Maps adorned the walls like wrapping paper, the word _ Wanderlust _ in big bold cursive wooden letters sitting atop the bed. You could suddenly tell that the people who had owned this place were elderly, people who got all of their decorum ideas from magazines and Hallmark movies. Jason was suddenly very glad they were dead. 

_ He’s alone. He’s vulnerable. I could do it now. I could kill him now.  _

“---Vaas.” 

Vaas did not answer him, only brought a thumb to his mouth that grazed the front of his teeth. The signal was lost again. Jason entered closer, mindful of the knife that was still strapped to the inner part of his ankle. Now that he thought about it, the blade made walking uncomfortable, he had to keep his entire lower leg straight just to keep from buckling. It was only when the door shut that Vaas looked up at him, partial confusion narrowing his brow when he saw how drenched Jason was. The thumb under Vaas's teeth moved forward, the edge of his lower lip following. For a moment he looked like he wanted to move, to get defensive, but he infuriatingly stayed put. 

_ This would be no fun if Vaas did not fight back.  _

Jason waited for Vaas to say something, to ask how his meeting with Hoyt went, ask him why he’d come in here so late and soaking wet. _ Anything. He wanted Vaas to say literally anything. _ All that came was the whine of the radio, the intrusion of a woman’s voice singing in Spanish. 

“---what the fuck are you  _ doing _ ?” The only thing Jason could think to say and it came out half-baked. He simply needed the silence to stop, needed some gratification and proof that said the man before him was more than an aftereffect of coke. Regardless of the temperature of the mood, Vaas seemed nonplussed. He tossed the two-bit radio and all its whining toward Jason who just barely had the grace to catch it. 

"---I'm minding my own fucking business, Jason. It's an art, you know? I pride myself on the fucking discipline to know when to fuck off. "

Vaas was smiling at him now, a palm going under his chin as the fingers drummed over his cheek. Jason found himself hating that smugness, reasoned that the world would be better off when it was gone.  _ A lot of things would be better when Vaas was gone.  _ Now that he had the reason and dexterity to do so, Jason switched the radio off and silenced its screeching. 

" You had fun with my boss, yeah? " Not a question but a declarative statement. It was a habit Citra tended to be partial to as well. It gave one the impression that they were probing the back of your guts and showing you the entrails.  _ Brother and Sister, master manipulators.  _ Even now, Jason was drawing vague connections between them. Citra never smiled like Vaas but she often tilted her head upward right when she was getting ready to tell you something grave.  _ That tip-top moment when you knew she was about to make you look like a fool.  _ Vaas tended to do the same thing right when he was attempting sarcasm or a backhanded compliment. Both were equally vile, both serving the same narcissistic complex that made the speaker look falsely intelligent. 

_ Jason hated them both. _

"---was it good coke?" 

"--- _ what _ ?" 

Vaas made a vague gesture, dragging a finger over the bridge of his nose and his eyes. 

_ My eyes, my eyes are still red. Fuck. When was the last hit? I can't remember.  _ Jason instinctively rubbed at them, an action that made Vaas laugh. 

"---yeah, that's how he fucking started me off too." Vaas beamed, pushing himself off the bed and over one of the high bedposts. "---then it was  _ the money, the status, and power.  _ Very fucking convincing, probably came off some bullshit brochure." 

"---I'm not here to talk about Hoyt, Vaas." 

" I know." Vaas started, swinging partially on the bedpost and walking around it. "Hoyt sent you over here to kill me, right?" 

Jason imagined he should have been surprised at that but something inside himself told him he shouldn't be. For some time, he didn't know when, Jason had accepted that there was very little Vaas didn't know. _ Even less Jason could hope to hide from him. _ These things, these packaged secrets, they unearthed themselves the same way carcasses will wash up on the beach. Shells of past trauma, decomposing jellyfish of half-way desires. They all came up in a tide that was never in Jason's control a _ nd he hated that.  _

"---aren't you just a fucking psychic." 

“ A lesson in life, hermano. Common sense isn’t a fucking super power, alright? You don’t have to be a fucking psychic to see a pattern of bullshit, pussy behavior.  _ Besides _ , second time is the fucking charm, right?" Vaas grinned, giving Jason a finger gun as he sauntered closer. "But I get you twice, you get me once is no game, no? I owe you a chance to fuck me over.  _ Fair is fair _ . " 

There was a silence between them again, a quiet that brought with it the memories of the two most prominent times Vaas had tried to kill him. One at the ravine and the other with a bullet point-blank at his chest. How many times since then had Jason had the opportunity to kill Vaas? Dozens now that Jason had thought of it. He could have strangled him down in the wine cellar. Could have stabbed him when he was lying there beside him in the red room. 

_ "---that shit will stop." Vaas had said, fingers going through Jason's hair. It felt calming, it brought him back to earth. "---in time, it won't bother you anymore."  _

"---and how's this gonna go down,  _ chico rudo _ ? How are you gonna fucking do it?" Vaas was in front of him now, tilting his head so that he had clear and undeniable access to eye contact. "---are you gonna put a fucking bullet in my skull, Jason? Stab me in the heart and let me fucking bleed out? Artistic, Jason very moving. Poetic.  _ La Petite Mort.  _ " 

Vaas's hands were over Jason's wrists, an action that made the American shudder at the touch. He brought Jason's hands so that they cupped over his own throat, setting them there with an ever present grip. "---or I could go like Keith." 

As humiliating as it was, hearing Keith's name while he was halfway somber brought something out in Jason. It was painful, like sanitizing a wound and although he reasoned that this most recent loss paled in comparison to the last, he found himself overwhelmed by the mere idea of death. Death was a shadow that seemed to mirror no object, a constant he had no hope of predicting or following with a pattern. Tears began to cloud Jason's vision, his hands clenching with their failing strength so that the flesh over his knuckles began to turn red. 

"---fuck---fuck you--" Jason managed, his brow lowering with the sheer rage of it all. Yes, he could kill Vaas. Not for Hoyt or Citra or Riley, but for  _ himself. _ He would kill Vaas because he wanted to do it. He would kill Vaas because it needed to be done. 

Despite the fact that Jason was applying pressure to his trachea, Vaas was grinning. "---snap my fucking neck. Fucking suffocate me." His eyes were redding, watering. Not from tears, Jason was the one crying, but because he was quite quickly running out of air. At that moment Jason Brody began to feel invincible. It was that strange tickle at the back of his neck, the exhale in his chest that filled his lungs and pulsated his muscles. 

**_Fuck. Hunt. Kill._ **

**_Fuck. Hunt. Kill._ **

Vaas gave an involuntary gasping noise, his smile flickering between waves of pain. Jason kept at it, ignoring how painful it was having Vaas's nails in his wrist. Yes, he would avenge his brother. He would avenge his girlfriend, his old life. 

"---all your fault. This was all  _ your  _ fucking fault." Jason grimaced, throwing his shoulders into the chokehold, furious that Vaas was not kicking or flailing. Instead he began to look at Jason through lidded eyes, contempt lying in the subtle way he let his chin raise. Even at the threat of death, Vaas still held the ridiculous belief that he was Jason's superior. It was the same look Citra had given him as she straddled him, her facial expression remaining stoney as he came in her.  _ Vaas was just fucking like her.  _ The only difference was that Vaas had the common decency to commit his violence out in the open. He would deserve his death but he would not give Jason the satisfaction of going out screaming.

_ He will go quietly, he will go with dignity in defeat. This is unacceptable.  _

Vaas laughed. Despite everything, despite the fact that his eyes were bulging and his face red, he was laughing. "---my fault. My _ fucking- _ \--" He chuckled, finding the idea that Jason was yet again blaming him for his misfortune humorous.

Jason thought then of Hoyt. Thought of him sitting down on a claw footed velvet chair, Riley kneeling down to be his footrest. He thought of Daisy bringing him something to eat on a silver platter, Oliver dabbing his forehead with a lace napkin. 

_ He wins. No matter what I do. He fucking wins.  _

_ "Let’s just say Vaas has an interesting track record when it comes to fairweather obsessions. He likes to keep pets now and then, little gifts from overseas. When you landed here, when he first got a look at your group, I can remember him asking me to keep someone that fits your description." Volker had said. "---for all expected purposes, Mr. Brody. You were meant to be a gift. A present from me to him."  _

_ Vaas wanted me.  _

He thought of Liza. He thought of the overheard conversations she had with Daisy. The ones about Jason’s lack of commitment, his aimless drive. He thought of Citra and her fairweather affections, the ruthlessness she had exhibited when cutting into his back.  _ You are strong, powerful.  _

_ Vaas wanted me.  _

Vaas began to buck backward, eyes going up and to the ceiling as if reaching climax. He would lose consciousness soon, his grip falling. However he failed to look scared, failed to look panicked or nearing a final prayer. Jason's cock began to twitch. 

**_Fuck. Hunt. Kill. Fuck. HUNT._ **

**_HUNT._ **

**_HUNT._ **

Without giving warning, Jason threw Vaas backward and toward the bed with enough force to make the wooden  _ WANDERLUST  _ letters fall off the wall when the bed stand smacked it. Vaas let out a deep gasp, sprawling on his back and coughing as he attempted to get his bearings. 

"-- _ -you're fucking _ \---you're fucking dead. You son of a bitch. _ You’re dead. _ " Jason was furious. He didn't know why but he  **_was._ ** He was angry and knew only now how to relieve it. Vaas wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, started laughing again through coughs. 

_ God, Jason hated him.  _

Jason was still crying when he began to tear at his belt, forcing it out of the belt loops so fast that there was heat left there when he slid them down. His pants came off too, ripping down with enough force to snap the belt loops. The knife was still strapped there to his lower ankle, he slid it out of its case and threw it with all force and toward Vaas's head. It missed him,  _ unfortunately _ , and Jason had just enough time to see it go straight into the headboard and through the wood. Vaas turned to it, went to grab it. 

**_KILL. KILL. KILL._ **

When Jason was close enough to grab Vaas, an elbow went straight to his face. Blood came from his nose, staining the white sheets. Jason was knocked silly but had the sense to see that Vaas had grabbed the knife from the bedpost and now had it in his hand. He looked fucking  _ insane _ , eyes all bulging with his neck sporting a clear choker of red where Jason had strangled him.

" COME ON, PUTA! MOTHERFUCKER! I'M FUCKING WAITING FOR YOU! " Vaas roared, brandishing the knife up and over his head. When he went down, Jason had just enough time to dodge and Vaas ripped open a pillow instead. Feathers streamed after the knife when he went in for a second blow. Jason, again, let Vaas catch the mattress and hit him hard with his fist on the side of the head. The blow was enough to disorientate Vaas long enough for the knife to be jostled away. It was still stuck in the bed but Jason's maneuverings had made it slide off and to the floor. 

_ No matter, we can still use our hands.  _

Vaas caught Jason with another one of his fists, Jason returned the favor by getting him right under his jaw. Jason was on top of him then, blood dripping down to Vaas's face as he inevitably pushed himself upwards and then over Jason. They tussled longer. Jason attempting to get at Vaas's neck only to get a knee to the chest or a fucking elbow in the side. Now  _ Jason _ was the one starting to feel choked. He thought no longer of Citra, Hoyt or Keith. No, he didn't even think of Riley as he began to paw at Vaas's thighs. He thought now only of the heat between them, the fiery way his chilled skin melded to Vaas's. 

_ I want you.  _

_ I have earned you. _

_ You owe me. _

_ You are mine.  _

And it happened so much like the time before. 

The taste of blood.  _ His _ blood. 

Jason did not know how he found Vaas's mouth but he did, his bare thighs eclipsing around the other man's torso as his arms went around his neck. Vaas was saying something between breaths but returned the kiss, forcing his arms under Jason's back and pulling him closer. 

_ It hurt. Everything hurt.  _ His nose. His fucking scarred up back. His naked thighs rubbing up against cargo pants. But none of it stopped him. It felt like a release, a long awaited expense of pressure. The blood between them was spreading like a paint. 

Vaas was still trying to speak between the breaks where they went up for air, Jason's hands eclipsing the sides of his face and then down to his shoulders. He had full intention of taking the man's shirt off but leaving his own on _. You expose your scars but not mine.  _ But Vaas stopped him, moved his own hands toward Jason's briefs so that his throbbing erection would break free, already hard. 

Jason understood then, began to fiddle with one of Vaas's many buckles, and was grateful when the help came.

"---fucking say it." Vaas managed, out of breath as he began to slide his belt out of its loops. It was tossed aside, landing somewhere with the knife. "Say you want me to fuck you." 

Jason made a sound of clear disgust, pulled at the strip of hair that was Vaas's mohawk. "--- _ I'm  _ going to fuck  _ you. _ " 

Vaas laughed, began to unbuckle his trousers and pull them down. "---- _ mhm _ . You feel big, honey? You feeling fucking brave? You're fucking  _ papi chulo _ in this fucking house now, fucking cocksucker---" 

He grabbed the head of Jason's penis, gave it an ungraceful tug, and began to start friction. All the while he started in on Jason's neck, placing open-mouthed kisses and bites into the sensitive space there as Jason already began to reel. 

_ This is wrong. Fuck. Oh my god. But I want him. I want him so bad it hurts. Everything with you hurts. Everything on this island is pain.  _

"---fuck---fuck you---" Jason reasoned, arms going around Vaas's shoulders as he tried to figure out which sensation he liked best. The attention to his neck or penis. Vaas slowed all his tugging, his mouth grazing upon Jason's jaw and to the side of the mouth. 

"---ask me." He said, breath hot and overwhelming. "---ask me fucking nicely." 

Jason groaned, pulled away, but let Vaas continue in on his neck.  Honestly, he could have let this go on forever. Vaas was good at this, his mouth providing the perfect stimulation of hard then soft again.  It felt amazing. It was juvenile and such an easy tease but every roll of this man's tongue was something electric. It made his skin both crawl and pulsate. "--- _ Vaas _ \---" 

_ What the fuck am I going to even say?  _

_ Where am I right now _ ? 

"---I waited so fucking long," Vaas said, anger clear in his tone. "---you made me  _ fucking  _ wait so  _ fucking _ long." 

He began to move backward. Jason, feeling needy and made of gelatin, followed with him with his arms still around his upper back. He let his cheek fall into the concave of Vaas's neck, feeling dreamy as Vaas began to slide him down lower and on his back. Jason watched in abject fascination as Vaas spit into his right hand, curved it over his dick and with one pump was back on top of Jason, his movements frenzied and quick. Vaas hiked Jason’s thighs upward so that one knee hooked under the arm that steadied their weight. The other was over his bare ass. 

"Vamos,  _ cariño _ ." Vaas said, one hand grabbing at Jason's right ass cheek as his mouth brushed against his. It was gentle, the kiss feeling more slow and gradual. Jason moaned into Vaas's mouth, losing himself a bit as he let his eyes close and his arms circle around the other man's shoulders. It was strangely intimate, less quick and dirty. How quickly he was forgetting who he was doing this with, where he was doing it.  _ The mess of the world that was just outside, it began to melt away. The rain began to pound harder, falling off the shingles in violent blows.  _

Time seemed to be moving slower, the rate in which thoughts came and went slowing to a crab’s crawl. Despite not getting his requested permission, Vaas had already found his way inside Jason with one finger. He teased the opening, going back in forth in a friction that made Jason's neck heat up. 

_ He's bating me like a fucking dog. It's humiliating. He’s trying to humiliate me. _

Humiliation did not cover the half of it because Jason knew he could take in more than this. He had had "couple's" toys with wider girth than a man's four fingers, a lesson he had gradually taught himself when one stimulation had failed the last. He thrust himself downward, attempting to find any pleasure he could. A _ lways wanting bigger, better things _ . 

Vaas seemed to get the point, introduced a second finger, and changed his approach in motions that took more inertia. Looking for the perfect spot. Jason instinctively angled himself toward the most satisfying position, chin lifting as he let out a shaking breath that was two parts anticipation and dread. 

"--- _ just _ \---" Jason said, hands coming off of Vaas's shoulders and through his hair. He was still partially damp from rain water, his thighs whining at the force of being held open around the other body. "---just fucking do it already." He practically moaned it, bucking his hips downward so Vaas could go in deeper. Here came finger number three, stretching him where he had already stretched himself so many times.

_ Long live the sex addicts of the world, the adrenaline junkies with no empty tank.  _

Jason wanted desperately for this phase of their transaction to be over with. He had never really had a taste for things like foreplay and verbal kinks, much to the dismay of Liza and almost everyone who came before her. He tried not to think of the shame that would inevitably follow afterward, the looming threat of everything he had learned about Hoyt that day. For right now it was simply enough to live in the moment, to grasp at pleasure with open arms and gripping hands. 

_ Fine, I can play nice.  _

Jason struggled a bit through his awkward position, hands resting at the base of Vaas's neck as he planted another kiss to his mouth. He goaded him as much as he could, making every conceivable physical notion he could think of to suggest what he wanted. Even if this was wrong, even if it was humiliating, he would not beg for this man's attention. He would not verbally grovel for him. That was all Jason fucking had left. __

_ At least he could say he never said yes with words. _

Vaas's lips remained flat, a smile twisting to expose teeth that held back a chuckle. He removed his fingers, placed the head of his dick at Jason's entrance."---I thought I fucking told you to ask me nicely, Jason." 

Jason bared his teeth in rage, seethed as he began to feel the lines between lust and pure hatred blur again. Regardless of what Vaas said, Jason began to wiggle his hips downward, inviting him in with a slight wish gravity would do the rest. His body was craving it now, his heart thudding harder against his chest each minute that passed without the expected climax. It was torture. Waiting like this, his cock throbbing without the proper stimulation. Pure fucking torture.

_ Play nice, play nice.  _

"---fuck me." Jason said, bringing himself upward and letting his chin fall into the concave of Vaas's neck. His eyes trailed upward toward the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, his face turning the same shade as the red duvet he was splayed over. "---fuck me,  _ please. _ "

Jason didn't need to see his face to know that Vaas was grinning. When he finally entered Jason he took all his breath with him. Jason barely recognized the sound that came out of him as his own, the shocked inward gasp sounding as if he had just broken out of the ocean. 

_ Fuck. He's huge.  _

Jason threw himself backward, an action that made Vaas ease himself over him with serpentine like grace. He began working his mouth on Jason's neck, an attempt to get him to relax and open himself for deeper penetration. The American let out a deep breath, hands tangling the red tank top under his fists into a knot. Vaas said something in Spanish, it was low and undetectable. By tone alone, Jason recognized it as something like shock. An unplanned statement, something natural.

The pain was inevitable. Struggling against it was an option, forcing Vaas out of him another but he imagined the conversation proceeding this would be eons worse. The only thing worse than fucking Vaas would be dealing with the knowledge that he was just too fragile to take him on. 

_ Fuck that.  _

Jason tightened his fists again, grazed his teeth on Vaas's shoulder and bit down. He let out another breath, angled himself downward. His hips began to punctuate, his eyes burning as he let his ankles crossover Vaas's back. Vaas was merciful, _ thank god _ , going slow as his hand ebbed down Jason's side as he penetrated deeper. Jason allowed himself to try and relax further, focusing on all aspects of himself that remained tight. Tried to relieve them.

"---you scared, honey?" 

"Fuck you." Jason said, Vaas’s shoulder still in his teeth.

Vaas chuckled and Jason didn't need to hear him speak to know what he was thinking. '  _ No, I'm fucking  _ **_you_ ** _.' _

Regardless of his growing agitation, Jason allowed his muscles to untense, his insides reeling down from the sudden intrusion into that familiar calamity of pursuit. Vaas began to sway into a thrust, Jason's teeth finally leaving their imprints in the flesh beneath them. The pain had eased now, allowing for the precious moments required for the mind to readjust to a new reality. He was surprised how easily he began to follow Vaas's tempo, Jason's hips going upward while his went down. Jason let out a rather distasteful moan, looking upward to the paper Paris and pretending it was a skylight peaking out on the real thing. 

_ We are not here. We are somewhere else. We are different people living different lives.  _

The skin against his was hot, he began to feel the chill from the rain evaporate. How dimly he was aware of the fact that he was letting himself drift, his hands admiring the muscles that pumped with such power beneath his hands. The lovely and inviting way the heat between them melded into his body. He was reminded fully that he was physically attracted to this man. His body was ideal, perfect in a way. Having him close to him, touching him, it felt good.  _ Having him inside him felt good. _

Vaas moved again, bringing his mouth on Jason's. The American let his eyes slip closed, his hands grasping onto thighs that were still clad in their military pants. The thrusts began to grow faster, hitting deeper. That's when he had hit it, that specific, hard to reach spot that Jason had only found once with a toy. 

"---fuck. Fuck--" Jason groaned, wrapping his arms around Vaas's shoulders and pulling their chests together. His dick pressed upward against the other man's stomach, his hips gyrating obscenely in an attempt to recapture that fleeting sensation. "---there, there--" 

It was then that Jason took his legs, still at the other man’s back, and pushed Vaas deeper. He went in fast and holy shit did it  _ hurt _ but it was a pain that was laced with an intense pleasure. It was exhilarating, exciting in a way so many of his free falls were. Jason went to scream but silenced himself in the crook of Vaas’s neck.

"--fuck me.  _ Fuck me _ \---" 

Vaas did not need to be told twice. His hips started that delicious up and down, his arms looping around Jason with one hand digging into his ruined lower back. It started to bleed but  _ God, Jason didn't care.  _ He finally had gotten what he had asked for. The thoughts of the earlier day, the uncertainty, it was beginning to ebb away. In its place was physical pleasure, a euphoria to replace the dysphoria of the inside. Jason made a very audible sound of pleasure.

"You’re a fucking whore." Vaas, now realizing that Jason had experience in this, started to comment but Jason didn't let him finish. He was back on his mouth again, moving in pandem to keep him at the right spot. Vaas surprisingly did as he was told, a hand going down one of Jason's thighs to support his weight. 

"Here.  _ Here. _ " Jason said,forcing his ankles harder on Vaas. "---faster.  _ Fast. _ " 

Jason lifted his hands off of Vaas to reach up for the back of the head post. He was very quickly beginning to feel winded, out of breath as each forceful slam into his guts took the air out of him. Vaas was going into him with the full force of his knees, slamming into him as the friction of his stomach rubbed against Jason's cock. The sound that came from Jason's throat was horrendous, he could barely recognize it as something a human would make much less something that came from him. 

And even during all this pleasure, all this supreme exhilaration, Jason couldn't get over how much he  _ hated _ Vaas. He hated Vaas for what happened to his friends, hated him for what happened to his brothers and to his life. But above all he hated Vaas for making him like  _ this _ . He hated Vaas for making him want to keep him around even if it was just for  _ this _ . This degenerate, nonsensical,  _ crazy  _ shit. Vaas, somehow, had made him want him like this.

"---I'm going to fucking  _ kill _ you." Jason said between breaths, throwing his hands down into Vaas's bare shoulders and digging the nails in. The center of his body was beginning to feel hot, from coming orgasm or blind fury he couldn't tell. Stupidly he began to feel jealous that Citra had decided to only destroy Vaas's midsection. Glumly he was made aware of his own scarred flesh, a realization of a lifetime of cutoff tees and high collars.  _ She’s going to die.  _

" Shut the fuck up, Jason." Vaas replied, surprisingly still collected. "---fucking bitch. I swear to god--" 

Jason made another sound of pleasure, moaning with his neck craned upward toward the false Paris. 

"I said---" Vaas mused, pausing to catch his breath. "---shut the fuck  _ up."  _ He began to keep his inward thrusts there longer, punctuating the energy as if his penis was a fucking dagger. Jason responded by clenching himself around Vaas tight enough to make friction harder, grinning through teeth still stained red as Vaas began to moan obscenities. 

"Puta. Holy fucking shit, Jason--Fucking  _ cochina _ .  _ Eres repugnante. Estás muy sucio _ ."

" _ Shut the fuck up. _ " Jason mimed, slapping the side of Vaas's face as he began to steadily release the pressure again. Vaas groaned in response, falling back into place as he allowed himself to melt into Jason. He was back in his neck, doing that thing with his mouth Jason liked as his hips kept up a nice tempo. Jason hummed with pleasure, held Vaas's hair with tight fingers to let him know to keep doing that. 

"You're---you're  _ really _ fucked up, Jason." Vaas was laughing. Jason began to pull at his hair, demanding the kisses to his neck. 

"People call me fucking loco crazy but you---honey,  _ you--- _ " 

Jason didn't want to hear this. He tore furiously at Vaas's hair, forced his face up and into a kiss so he wouldn't be able to speak anymore. Vaas again, responded the way Jason wanted with two arms behind his back as he forced their mouths together harsher. His tongue danced around Jason's. In response Jason released his death grip on the bedpost and put his hands to either side of Vaas's face. For a while they stayed this way, mouths pressed together as the tempo between them followed heavy gives and takes. Their bodies were like the waves of the ocean, pushing and pulling together in a way that was cohesive and natural. 

And Jason couldn't help but feel satisfied. For the first time in what felt like eons, everything felt right. Everything felt as if it were falling into place and together. Things were as they should be again. In this blur the boundaries between pleasure and affection began to run together. He caught his mind slipping into things that felt like adoration, the same thought processes he had with Oliver when they had tried the same thing. You begin to assign benal praise to the person that is making you feel so good. The primal ape brain starts to connect the dots and cross the ts. 

_ God, he absolutely adored him.  _ It wasn't a sappy thing. He still reasoned that if Vaas were to die he wouldn't shed a tear but god, his presence was everything he had ever been looking for in life. He was the highfall jumps, he was the shots of ecstasy. He was everything he had ever wanted out of life in one terrible fall. He was--- 

"---fuck. No.  _ Fuck! _ "  _ How?  _ How was he about to cum? They hadn't been at it that long and Vaas hadn't even  _ touched _ his dick. He reasoned it was repression but that couldn't be the case. He had had both Liza and Citra not even a month prior.  _ Why was this different?  _ It wasn’t a competition, but he had no desire to be the first one to tag out. It was happening though, he could feel it in his lower belly as it crawled its way up. 

“---Vaas--- _ Vaas _ \--” He cried, not really knowing what it was he could even begin to say.  _ Slow down so I don’t cum first. Don’t make me lose even more of my pride.  _

Vaas smiled, licking up Jason’s jaw and then sliding his tongue between Jason’s gasping lips. His hips weren’t slowing, the up and down pandem starting to rock their entire frame with that bizarre frequency. “---what is it, mi querido? What’s the fucking problem, huh?”

Jason thought he was going to start choking, he pulled his head up, leaving his neck exposed for a forceful bite. When Vaas bit him, it was enough to draw blood.  _ Now he’s a fucking vampire. On top of everything, he’s a fucking demon too.  _

And here it came. He tried to stall it, tried in a vague pursuit to hopefully delay it but it was inevitable. He came and came  _ hard _ . It was a burst of hot warmth between them, a rush of semen that coated the front of his shirt and a small window of flesh on Vaas’s exposed abdomen. 

But god, he wasn’t fucking done yet. 

“Mi  _ pobre princesa _ . ” Vaas crooned, placing condescendingly sweet kisses to Jason’s jaw. “My poor, poor, Snow White. Wait with me, honey. Come the fuck on.” 

Jason hated how casual Vaas sounded. As if this entire act was something he just fucking happened upon. A porno with bad actors and even worse tropes. Jason wanted to be angry, wanted to start in with fists and shouting but couldn’t muster the energy. He grabbed onto the other’s man’s shoulders as if he were trying not to fall off the bitchseat of a motorcycle, his red and sweat drenched face barely peeking over Vaas’s shoulder as he used the headboard for support to slam deeper into him. 

_ Where the fuck does he get the energy from?  _

Sure enough though the thrusts of his hips seemed to linger longer when they were deeper inside Jason, the quickening pace dying down to a drawl of the hips. Jason whined with the over stimulation, momentarily forgetting to try and recall with his ninth grade level knowledge of Spanish what the fuck Vaas was calling him. When Vaas came it felt like something inside of Jason had been set off by explosive. It was a hot, a surgence that coated his insides and made the bottom of his ass stick to the sheets. 

Still chest to chest, Jason could feel the rapid thudding of the other man’s heart against his. Vaas's chest rose and fell rapidly, his head falling momentarily into Jason’s neck as he attempted to regain some sort of composure. A part of Jason couldn’t help but feel a glimmer of pride at that, an impartial knowledge that he had taken the great pirate lord down a peg and made him momentarily weak. But it was short lived because fucking Vaas was  _ exhausting _ . 

_ He made me feel weak too. I still haven’t won. Not completely.  _

Without really thinking of the intimacy of the gesture, Jason buried his eyes and the bridge of his nose into Vaas’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around him so their bodies were in a vice. It was an action that was dismissed when Vaas pulled himself out of him all sticky and wet. And all the sudden Jason couldn’t feel the thudding of another heart, the melding of sweat slick skin against his. To Jason it looked literally like Vaas couldn’t get away fast enough, like they were right back to square one of their ever turbulent relationship. It reminded him once again that they did not entirely know each other. Not the way you’re  _ supposed _ to know the people you have sex with. Jason didn’t want him to stick around and cuddle but  _ fuck, what was the rush? _ Vaas had rolled himself off and away from him. He was on his back and beside Jason, pulling his pants back over his ass with a fluid motion of the hips. 

“--- _ wha- _ -” Jason started, just now coming down from his orgasim. “---what?” 

“ What the fuck do you mean  _ what _ ?” Vaas said, too casually. “I want a fucking cigar.” 

“--- _ what _ ?” 

“A cigar. I fucking want one.” Vaas slung his legs over the side of the bed, blandly looked around for his boots. He turned to Jason, snapped his fingers. “Did Hoyt give you any of those fucking party favors? The fucking cuban ones with the gold and shit around the end.” 

Jason just stared at him, felt honestly flabbergasted. “---what?” 

“Does cock make you fucking stupid? Does getting dicked down knock the fucking sense out of you? Did Hoyt give you a fucking cigar box  _ yes or no _ ?” 

“---no?”

“Then I need to get up and get a fucking cigar, yeah? Point A to point fucking B, motherfucker. This is how life works.” Vaas had found one of his boots, slipped it on and began looking for the other under the bed. He soon gave up and decided to go out without one when he looked down and saw the absolute mess that Jason had left on the front of his shirt. Not only that but his neck was turning purple from where Jason had almost  _ fucking killed him.  _ He looked back at Jason still in his black shirt, made a gesture with two fingers that said  _ ‘give me that.’ _

“ Fuck you.” 

“You already did now give me the fucking shirt.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“I’m sorry, were you under the impression I was fucking asking you? Do you know how un-fucking-professional this is? If I walk in and ask Chewie’s fat ass for a cigar with white boy all over me, how the fuck do you think he’s going to feel?” 

“Mine’s got shit on it too, asshole. What the fuck is that going to do?” 

“Do the fucking math. It’s got less. You’re not fucking listening.  _ Idiota. _ Do as I fucking say.” 

Jason was just barely adjusting to having blood flow back into his brain.  _ Why was Vaas like this?  _

“---and I am just gonna sit here fucking naked?” 

“ So what, you’re fucking shy now? After all that _ fuck me, fuck me,  _ bullshit, you’ve decided to be a fucking wallflower? The name Snow White really, really fits you, amigo.”

Jason violently took his shirt off, once again, setting off Citra’s scars. “---ugh. Do you ever fucking shut up?” He bit back, throwing the shirt into Vaas’s outstretched hand. Regret for what transpired started to ebb toward him like a creeping widow in her web. Why had he even done this, what the fuck was he thinking? Vaas had caught the shirt, saying nothing as he stepped forward and created even more distance between them. He had his back turned from him, a meager reflection of self-concealment, but Jason saw it. 

  
Scars, hundreds of scars on this man’s back that folded partially under his rib cage and around his abdomen. Some followed that typical tribal formation, swirls and geometric shapes, but others were slashed through. As if the artist, as if Citra, had gotten frustrated and started scratching out the design like a pen on paper. He would have loved to sit and stare longer but he hadn’t the luxury. The black privateer shirt was on inside out and over him in a second, the arms bulging slightly more at the arms than when Jason had worn it. Vaas looked at something on the floor, kicked it upward with his foot and caught it with his hands. He threw Jason his long discarded pants, still heavy and thick with rain. 

“---wait here.” Vaas demanded, kicking his own tank top out of his way as he made for the door. “You leave here, I’ll fucking know about it.” 

For a fleeting moment, Jason couldn’t help but feel bewildered.  _ I gave you what you wanted. You should be happy with me. We should be---  _

He didn’t want to finish that sentence. Couldn’t collect the mental stamina to reflect on it. He reasoned his mind to go back to thinking about Vaas’s death, possible places where the knife could have landed in all their scuffle. 

“---okay? Then what? I sit around here naked until you get back from getting a fucking cigar?” 

“Yes.” Vaas said, opening a door that brought with it a chill of a very violent and persistent rain. An ocean breeze, it made Jason duck beneath the duvet. Vaas continued. “---we go again. We fuck again and then you tell me what the fuck Volker said to you. You tell me what he knows and we go from there---” 

The silence that came from Vaas’s departure felt unnatural. It felt poignant and sad, the slow score that follows the death of someone in a movie. Jason sat bolt upright for a long time, watching the door for any signs of life or movement. When none came, he slid into the bed. He wondered blandly when the last time someone had slept here, if anyone had ever thought to desecrate these sheets the way he and Vaas just did. 

The rain fell against the wooden slates in pleasant collected keys. If Jason closed his eyes, he could pretend he was somewhere else. He could pretend he had just done what he had done with someone else. He thought of Paris, the trip with Liza. Realized all too suddenly that he hadn’t enjoyed what they had done in that short European flat nearly as much as what he did in this sleepout. A deep hatred for himself pooled at his gut when he realized he was hoping Vaas was serious when he said they’d be fucking before he’d have to plan their next move on Volker. 

_ He was honestly getting tired of all the fucking planning and maneuvering that was going on lately. A little over a month ago he thought he was going on a fucking vacation.  _

It would be nice to feel good again. Even if it was fleeting. Even if it was terrible and vapid. He held a pillow to his chest, buried his face in its dusty scent. For the first time in what felt like years, he wished it was Liza Snow beside him.

That, at least, was the normal thing to do. 


	17. Miel.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miel (spanish) - Honey.

Vaas felt angry but didn't know _why_ . Anger had been his first reaction for so long it had started to feel like a beloved pair of boots: _Worn for every occasion,_ every outing. Anyone else in his position would be elated, ecstatic. Sex releases the proper endorphins for such a thing, the blood pressure rises to the degree to make one forget that they are living in a world of turmoil and chaos. Perhaps, he realized, this was why Jason had decided to come to him the way that he did. He wanted a break from all the commotion, that pain that sits in the chest of every man and festers there until his heart stops. The longer Vaas lingered on this idea, the more he became angry. Not just with Jason but _himself._ In an hour's time, Vaas had become a member in the long list of people who had given Jason Brody exactly what he wanted. He now had colleagues in people who ran coffee shops, dollar-dime whores who flashed smiles drenched in lipstick for a dinner date. 

_Just like everyone who came before you. Like Citra, like Hoyt, I've given you exactly what you wanted from me._

_Let's not think of this shit anymore._

_What else can I be angry at? What else deserves my fucking time?_

  
  


The rain began to fall less like a shower and more like a downpour. He could hear himself mentally urging the idea that he did not feel cold. _His fingers were not numb, his hair was not stuck uncomfortably to his forehead._ Vaas told himself that he had more to worry about than petty discomfort. The pain in his body was a sorry distraction, an unworthy contender for all this anger. There was another kind of storm brewing, a laundry list of problems that had been piling atop each other like cubs floundering toward the tiger's tit. The main house, the one so comfortably away from the sleepout was quiet. A godsend for him, because he was realizing he hadn't the patience to answer anyone's questions. 

_What have you been doing all this time?_

_Where is Jason Brody?_

_What is our next plan of action?_

A rather graceless package of jerky, Chewie's most likely. A mango and a canteen of half-full of water that could have belonged to anyone. _Jason would need to eat something._ Vaas was more than happy to grab what he needed and head back again, his efforts more or less focused on cleaning up whatever new mess Jason had made. This had become a habit, after all. Jason making a mess and Vaas clamoring to figure out how to reverse it. 

_Why he did it and why Jason kept coming back to him, no one seemed to know._

He was beginning to resign himself to the idea that he didn't understand Jason Brody. Not by lack of trying. He liked to think he could read the best of people, understanding them just as far as their resilience would allow. The average Joe has an endurance that goes as far as his pain tolerance. Once you've hurt him enough he's putty in your hands, a clay sculpture ready for the fires of human trafficking. If he were to write a handbook on the art, a sadistic little _how-to on taming the human spirit_ , he'd say the first step would be breaking the body. The last to go is that sense of hope, the fleeting, fairweather belief that things will get better with time. 

_Someone will come here to save me._

_Maybe my dad actually did pay off that ransom money._

_I can run if I go for the trees._

Like a fish thrashing against the hook, the captured man-animal sews the seeds of his demise. It is the pursuit, _that hungry, primal want for freedom,_ that breaks a man. That is how you sell human slaves. You squash all beliefs of escape. If hope is a flame, you let it die out like a campfire. A suffocation and eventual burnout. This is how you break the human spirit. This is what made Jason Brody so immensely different. 

_Jason seemed to want to stay captured._

He looked _peaceful._ Jason looked _peaceful_ lying there on the bed they had just had sex in. His back was healed well enough for him to lie on and his face was turned just enough so that one could see that his eyes were closed. Still naked by the looks of it, the red duvet pulled up to his chin to block the cold out. Silence reigned. The rain pounding on top of the sleets of the roof tiles like the keys of a piano. Vaas was reminded of how this was the only structure on the entire island that was made with a degree of professionalism. Every other building would be made from cobbled-together wooden structures and leftover parts of ships. These were the houses of his childhood, a grim and rather humbling reminder that everything of substance his people ever had came from outsiders. _Missionaries of some religion, tourist groups, refugees from a war._ He could remember being ten and seeing a skyscraper in a movie once. The sprawl of New York looked like something living, a metal beast. Everything he had ever learned, everything of substance, was from a movie.

"---Jason." He finally said, leaning down beside the bed. " Wake the fuck up." 

Jason groaned in response, brow furrowing as he allowed his eyes to bounce open long enough to look at Vaas. For a moment he looked confused, his eyes blinking slowly enough to suggest he was tempted to fall asleep again. He was coming down now. Coming down off of whatever high Hoyt had put him on. It wasn't exactly a secret that the drugs at those show parties were almost always spiked with something like liquid lust. They often worked a lot like cupid's arrow, ticking the user's blood pressure just high enough for him to confuse it for love. He sees some vacant looking whore and the next thing knows he is swindling his life savings away just to buy him or her. Even the walls, _painted shades of red and burgundy,_ were psychological ploys to get the mind in a state of eroticism. The buyers sit in a bake of hormones and ecstasy. It is not rare to find that buyers consummate their purchases in the same room they made them in. 

_Vaas reasoned that this was the explanation of their exploits from earlier._

_Nothing more, nothing less._

"---eat." Vaas said, shaking Chewie's bag of jerky at him. "---you're fucking high. Hoyt gave you some shit." 

"---'m not fuckin--high." Jason argued, glaring at Vaas. "---I'm tired." 

Inwardly Vaas wondered if he had been like this during his own little initiation with Hoyt. There had been drugs, he was sure but not of this sort. When Volker wanted Vaas high, it was the type that made him frenzied. When a village needed taking out, for example. Volker always gave him the kind of shit that would be effective and addictive. _Genius when you really think about it._

“ You sleep when you’re dead, Snow White. We have business, amigo. Up, up, up.” 

Vaas came to sit on the bed, guiding Jason up by his arms with enough force to jar him. The American groaned inevitably, the chords of his neck standing out with the effort it took to sit up. They stuck out behind his dainty white flesh marked red by bite wounds. Below them, below the hollow of his collar bone, you could see the starting of the black wire Vaas had used to make his jade necklace. The pendant, stuck to his skin with dried over sweat, shined over Jason’s bare chest like a budding wound. _He had kept it, had never taken it off by the looks of it._ This was noted as something of interest. Vaas retrieved the mango, bit into it, and offered it to Jason as if he were urging him to copy. 

"---gross." Jason said but took it nonetheless, taking his own bite and chewing. He must have then realized he hadn't eaten anything for nearly two days because he went in for a second and third. 

"You look like shit." Vaas offered, if only to stop the quiet. 

" Yeah, well your hair spray washed out," Jason replied, tossing his head toward Vaas's wet hair. "---time for another salon visit." 

" Si, si, then I can be pretty like you, no?" 

"You can try." 

Silence again. The pitter-patter of rain dying and then resurging again as the clouds that carried it changed their position. A silly thought, but the word _pretty_ would fit Jason well. Vaas was reminded of the photos from old ancient Rome, pictures stolen from the cameras of the sobbing tourists who took them. _Here is Achilles mid-stride, his muscles defined by a careful hand and longing stone._ How alike he was to Jason who was just as tragically beautiful, just as articulated and rigid. How perfect Jason would be if he remained quiet, if he lacked the capacity to act. Yes, it would be nice to keep him in suspended animation. A stone model with a heartbeat. Jason stopped chewing. 

"---aren't you going to eat something?" Jason asked. 

"Fuck you." 

"Fuck _you._ How do I know this shit's not poisoned?" 

"You know, Jason you never cease to fucking amaze me. An hour ago you were very polite, saying _please and thank you_. Now you're scared of a fucking mango." 

Jason visibly cringed at that, as if being reminded that he had actually said the words ' _fuck me please_ ' brought him great pain. Vaas didn't know if he should find that funny or _infuriating_. He felt both. He smiled at him regardless. 

“---what am I coming off of?” Jason asked, audibly trying to change the subject. 

  
“ In my very professional opinion it’s a combination of things, hermano. Volker likes to throw everything at the wall at those fucking parties. You’ll let me know if you have any fucking chest palpitations, blurred vision and hot flashes, yeah?” 

Jason blanched, his face still in the mango. “---well, it’s not like I had a choice. I didn’t want my cover blown.” 

“ _Ah._ He force fed you pills, right? He stuck the coke under your nose and told you to sniff. What a cocksucker he is. _A fucking bastard_.” 

Silence again. This time much more poignant and defiant. Vaas grinned at Jason, leaned down on his open palms and observed the way the American seemed to shrink into himself like a tortoise in his shell. _Funny._ Funny not because the situation was hilarious, it was the opposite. Funny because Jason wore a lot of his more obvious flaws like the pins you might see on the lapels of a general. _Here, cadet Jason Brody was awarded for his stunning lack of tact, a trophy given to him after a lifetime of opportunity and privilege. Here he was given the reward of dumb fucking luck, a testament to his ability to make rash decisions and still come out on top. Here is a life of excess, lots of sex, laughs and time._

“---is that how he hooked _you_ ?” Jason started, finally letting the mango fall from his hand and off the bed. “--- _he stuck the coke under your nose and told you to sniff_?” 

Vaas laughed despite the creeping sensation of rage. That little jab was meant to hurt him, to stab at his pride. No doubt Citra had stocked Jason full of stories of her brother’s great betrayal, how Volker offered him a world of drugs and money and Vaas just couldn’t get away from his birthright fast enough. 

“No, no, that was _heroin_ . I think it was the _heroin_ that got me hooked, Jason. Do try and keep up, _honey._ ” 

“Don’t fucking call me _honey_.” 

“ Oh? _Excuse me?_ Why not? No, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry._ Honey is not appropriate for you? Honey is not good enough for you and your bitch boy fucking temperament? Tell me this, Jason, explain this shit to me fucking _please._ Why is it not okay now, huh? Why am I only allowed to give you your pretty boy fucking nicknames when I'm balls deep in your ass?"

Seeing the rage in Jason's face felt good. It felt ‘ _cold water on a hot afternoon’_ good. Jason seethed for a little bit, went to stand but realized he had no clothes on underneath the blanket. He wasn't angry enough to shed the rest of his feathered dignity, _not yet._ Perhaps if Vaas had any sense of shame, he too would feel that ebbing self-consciousness. For in his mind, Jason had every reason to feel humiliated. Here he was freshly fucked by the very man he says ruined his life, the same one who murdered his older brother and sent him spiraling down into a rabbit hole of self-destruction. The American scratched at his arm, the one with all the unsightly tattoos. A nervous tick no doubt, _a reaction to being watched_. 

"---fuck you, Vaas." Jason started, leaning backward. The anger was still there but it was muted, dulled down like the point of a well-loved pen as it glides to make a signature. He appeared to fall into himself, to shirk into his flesh as if he were forty years older than his twenty-five. The anger ebbed away into a tiredness, a crease at his brow that made him look up and away. 

“I said we can do that again, _yes_. This is why I came back.” 

“ You know what I fucking mean.” 

“No, I don’t _actually_. You see, you’re like the fucking tide, Jason. _In and out, in and out._ Is it a game, _perrito_? Another one of your fuckhead tricks?” 

Jason rolled his eyes, looked away, and back at Vaas as if he was considering a plan of escape. He opened his mouth, thought for a second and then shut it again. For the first time in his life, Jason Brody was actually _thinking_ , actually considering his words before saying them. _A revolutionary development._

“---this place makes you like that.” Jason started, throwing his hand outwards at nothing in particular. “---I don’t know- _-it makes it hard to think_ \---everything is---it’s like everything has a lot more weight to it here.” 

Vaas paused, not for dramatic effect but because he quite honestly didn't know how to respond. He had heard the way outsiders often talked of the Rook Islands. The Japanese soldiers that wound up here, the ones driven mad by dehydration, they'd write how the earth was sour _. It was evil_ , they would write, _the upper crust of hell._ Tourists like the ones who had built the party house and sleepout would call it a paradise. Others, those who were around long enough to impart such an impression, said the jungle left with you a feeling of lawlessness. _A call of the wild, if one were to be poetic_ . Having been here since day one, _Vaas had heard no such call._

" And California was different? Decisions had no weight in the United _fucking_ States?" 

"No." Jason replied. 

It was a bland, dry answer that came quickly after the question. It was jarring in a way, almost comical. For his first time in knowing Jason, Vaas had no point of reference. If the way in which decisions were kept and made differed in America, Vaas had no way of knowing. He could boast and say that all white boys lived a certain way. He could say that they were lavished to the point of excess by possibility, but the truth would be he had no _fucking idea._ He knew the American people in a snapshot, reels in films and the quick notes of passports and personal items. How a truly modern person lived, how they organized their thoughts, he couldn't begin to understand. 

" So life was hard in California, now it’s hard here. You have a track record of bitching and complaining in two fucking spaces on the map. _¡_ _Chale!_ Congratulations.” 

Jason gave a sound of disgust, threw his hands into his palms, and put his fingers through his hair. "---you wouldn't get it." 

For a few seconds, Jason stayed that way, swaying a little as his palms pressed deeply into his eyes. His shoulders sagged, the flesh over them looking red and angry with the advent of the healing process. In a way, Jason looked small and complacent, as if he could disappear into himself like the hermit crabs you find on the beach. In the moment it takes a man to wake from a dream, Vaas attempted for the third time that night to _understand_ Jason Brody. While Vaas knew his fair share of peril, he had never really known what it was like to be overwhelmed by possibility. His employment with Hoyt Volker was quite literally the only option that rivaled death. Perhaps if he had lingered longer on the thought, he would have liked to have taken his chances as some oracle in the jungle. He'd live off of caught game and fruit trees, scaring the locals in ritualistic attire and masks. A funny thought, but it stood as a testament that said he had only always had himself to worry about. His life, _almost always_ , was the only one that was ever in danger. 

  
  


"No, I don't think I would." Vaas shrugged, intrigued more than concerned. “I _really, really_ don’t get it, actually.” 

The quiet was beginning to make itself known as a third-wheeling passenger. Thunder idled in its displeasure outside, a clap of lighting executing itself in between like a shout into a cave. It did not take intuition to know that Jason was taking a moment to compose himself, his breath hitching and falling as he attempted and failed to regain a sense of regularity. Vaas wondered why Jason was allowing all this to happen, why he was so vagrantly permitting himself to fall apart and crumble. Inwardly he began to think that this was a ploy of some sort, an advantage Jason was looking to exploit. 

_Is that what the random sex was? Some sort of mind game he had learned from Citra?_

"---he has Riley." 

_Ah, there it is. That's what you're working me for. You're tricky, you._

"Uh-huh, _I see._ " Vaas started. "---and you believe him?" 

"---no, I--" Jason gave a long inhale, exhaled with a shake. "--- _I don't know anymore._ I don't know who to believe anymore." 

" Ah, you see now we have some common fucking ground, amigo. Because I don't know what to think of someone who rides my dick and then starts fucking crying in my goddamn bed. "

"---fuck you. _God-_ -" 

"Again, _this is still an option._ You have to stop being a bitch first. The tears, they ruin the fucking mood. Sadness makes me soft." 

Jason wiped his face with the back of his hand, looked anywhere but at Vaas. “--- _I don’t-_ \--I don’t fucking trust him. He’s--” 

“ _Old and rich?_ Yes, these are the makings of a fucking super villain. I should have read the signs too but I like getting high so-- _-Que Sera, Sera, you know?_ You win some you fucking lose some. ” 

“---I mean he’s a fucking snake. No matter what I do, no matter how much I think on it, I can’t see any situation where he fucking loses.” 

“That’s how the game is played, Jason. You play to win. You play your best cards.” 

“---I don’t have any fucking _cards_ though.” Jason intervened, his voice going a touch louder. Whether it came from anger, frustration or both, Vaas had to only guess. “---not anymore.” Jason cupped a hand against his neck, brushed lightly against the few scars that Citra had added just to be a bitch. He laughed despite himself but it wasn’t a good laugh, nothing with humor. “---I don’t even think I have my _friends_ anymore and they’re the reason I got in this fucking deep in the first place. All I got, all I got is---” Another pause and Jason was back at looking at the walls like a distracted grade schooler. “---all I got right now is _you._ ” 

Vaas laughed. “ That’s so fucked up, Jason. _Holy shit._ ” 

Jason was clearly going to ignore that. “---out of everyone I’ve met here, you’re the only one that’s been--- _I don’t know_ \---honest. You haven’t lied yet.” 

“Neither has Hoyt, Jason. Not outright, _at least._ Honesty is just one of my many qualities. Honesty doesn’t exactly make a fucking saint. ” 

Silence again, Jason’s jaw started setting and grinding so that it formed a hard line against his visage. Vaas thought he looked like the old style photographs you’d sometimes see in period films, the pictures taken where those depicted had to sit for hours just for the fucking light to go off. 

_Here is a man on edge, a man waiting for the fucking flash to go off._

“---is there a chance, _any chance at all,_ that my brother is still on this island?” 

Vaas stopped himself, briefly skimming past the very few times he had had to handle a trade-off without supervision. He knew how the King of Kyrat took his meat, the imperialistic way the slaves would be sent off on airplanes and helicopters with little to no surface damage. Riley's type, _slim, slender, and young,_ stayed on the market the same amount of time it took them to find a cage for them. Hoyt had been known to keep a few slaves for himself but they were always women, always blonde. _How Daisy had escaped his wrath was one of the world’s many wonders._ If Riley was somehow not purchased overseas, he would have been bought for someone local. Someone who, undeniably, worked as a privateer. 

"---pretty white boy Americans are like antiques here." Vaas started, struggling a bit with the English that went with the analogy. "They sell fast because they are _very_ rare and _very_ profitable. If Hoyt, _for whatever the fucking reason_ , declined an overseas buyer, he'd be shacked with one of the fuckheads down North. Privateer money is good for business, a money-back on fucking labor, I guess." 

"---where would they keep him?" Jason asked.

"We have taken five outposts so far. There are twelve in total. Seven places to hide a white boy who could have just as easily landed in Kyrat a week ago. " 

Jason made a face that looked like Vaas had stabbed him. This, he reasoned, was better than their sex. 

"-- _-then_ \---" Jason started, falling into a fresh new panic. "---what the fuck do I do? What am I supposed to do?" 

" Since I am so very gracious and honest with you, Jason, I'm going to tell you I don't know. Even if I pulled a magic trick outta my ass, became your fairy fucking godmother and shit, you wouldn't _want_ him back. Being passed around like a fucking joint, _well_ , you've seen what it does to people. " 

Vaas didn't need to be a mind reader to know that the image of Keith's hanging body passed over Jason's eyes like a bad hallucination. He physically reeled from it, hands going on either side of his face in a girlish panic. His eyes were brimming again, his chest heaving slightly.

"---but I can't just--- _I can't just_ \---I can't just not do anything." Jason managed, attempting to control his breathing. 

"Family is important. Yeah, _I know._ Out of everything else, that is something I can understand." 

More awkward silences, Vaas was getting sick of them. He secretly wished Jason would switch back to the other side of his mental erraticism, _at least then he was getting laid._ Jason's lips were quivering, his eyes brimming with tears and the aftereffect of his last high. A panic attack was imminent, inevitable at this point. 

"---if you were me. _And I was you_ \---" Jason started, controlling himself mutely. "---what would you have done?" 

“ I would have killed you and gone back to Hoyt.” Vaas replied. 

This was evidently the wrong answer, Jason’s face fell. He was expecting affirmation, _yet again I’m the one responsible for this grown ass man and his morale. He wants to be told he is special, he wants to be told how well he is doing and how much I appreciate his loyalty. How the mighty have fucking fallen._

“---but I would have screwed over Daisy and Oliver.” 

“And the world would have continued fucking turning with two less cocksuckers on it. America produces more white ass for Volker to sell everyday, my friend. There are no losses here, _not really._ ” 

Jason was sitting stark upright with his fists gripping the duvet. He wasn't crying, not in the emotional way, but his eyes were wet. Vaas could tell he wanted to start screaming, yelling, going off in all the bad ways sane people aren't supposed to do. But for whatever the reason, he was staving it off, attempting and failing to bury it deep within himself. However, Vaas got the impression that it wasn't just Riley that was starting to come to the surface. _It was everything_ , everything that had ever happened. Perhaps now he was reliving his first classroom paper cut, the first ever time Mommy wasn’t around to kiss it better. Inanely, he thought of the school Jason must have attended before this, the college of Arts in Los Angeles. In those classes, those lecture halls and brief meetings, no one had ever given Jason Brody the instruction to make decisions like this. No one sat him down and told him that there would come a time where his decisions meant the life and death of himself and three other people. In a way, Vaas was much the same. He had grown up believing that he was to serve a divine purpose, hours of meticulous knife work and skill traded for a lifetime of pumping up a shot-gun. Years of practice in worship, ceremonies, all of it lead to a life that was caked in the filth of someone else's mess. _Volker's fucking mess._

_Nothing in the world mattered, nothing in the universe made any fucking sense._

"---Jason." He started. " Jason, _honey_ , look at me." 

Jason did and to Vaas's great relief there was a touch of irritation there. He was coming out of it. Whatever this little stunt is, it was passing like the rain. 

“---if you don’t fucking stop with that _honey_ shit--” Jason gritted.

"I want you to hit me." 

"---what?" Jason remarked, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. 

"You want to right? You want to hit me, knock my fucking teeth out, make me beg. You want to hit me." 

"---when the fuck did I say that?" 

" You didn't. _You thought it._ I know every fucking thing that goes on in your head, hermano. I know every fucking thought, every want and fucking desire. I know everything because I know you. I know you so fucking well, Jason, I know when you're thinking with fists and when you're thinking with your fucking dick. Right now, you want to hit me." 

For a moment, nature was the only one speaking. She batted her fingers against the window panes, thrashed her arms between the trees and made the wind howl. The pain was brilliant. It came quickly like a fever, thrashing him in the side of the head with the same debilitating sting. Jason had hit him. Like Vaas had asked him to, Jason had fucking hit him. 

Vaas returned the favor. 

So did Jason. 

And the rain would did not stop until that morning. 

**-X-**

They fucked twice more that night. Once in Jason's lead and then with Vaas again as if there was some unspoken rule that said there was an etiquette to this kind of thing. Now Vaas was laying on his back, his face turned away so that the bruising left to his jaw would have no burden. Beneath him, one of Jason's arms was trapped and quickly losing blood flow but the American didn't bother to move it. He had his temple on the man's collar bone and his cheek flat against his chest. One hand was left useless and resting beside the other shoulder where he had last tried to strangle Vaas. He could hear the raging of the pirate lord's heart still leaping in his chest. Jason rose and fell each time Vaas gave an attempt to catch his breath. 

_He had told him everything._ Everything about Hoyt, everything about his proposition, and everything about what he could remember of the layout of the interior of his office. Vaas had taken it all in, nodded when appropriate and then hit Jason square in the stomach with one of his fists. There was no planning, not yet, but there was intuition, a bland understanding that said _you are being listened to and understood._ Above them, a bay-windowed skylight began to shine upon the first impressions of daybreak. A murky violet, the color of a painter's used brush, began to unveil itself as if on an art show. Every part of Jason's body hurt, _inside and out_ but he was thinking clearly, for the first time in what felt like forever he actually felt _good._

"---what the fuck are we going to do now?" He asked, adjusting himself to a more comfortable position across Vaas's chest. Vaas made a noise, a blase sort of ‘ _does it matter ?_ sort of sound that reverberated into Jason's ear like a curse. 

"---you've thought of something though, you thought of a place where Hoyt could keep Riley." 

"You're a broken fucking record, you know that? Fuck!" Vaas brought his hand up and tugged at Jason's hair, smacked him on the side of the head and tangled his fingers again. "You're a fucking persistent little shit, aren't you? One of your many fucking problems." 

"---where can I start to look?" Jason said, straining the arm that so lazily rested over Vaas's torso so that the hand turned into a fist. "---I know you, I know when you're fucking scheming and shit, where are we going to go next?" 

Vaas laughed, brought his hand down at the base of Jason's neck, and let his lips flirt atop his head. "---hm. That's big boy games, _honey._ Where I'm fucking going, there are no fucking take-backs. We go here, there's no more chances to play nice with Daddy Volker. We go here, and you're mine, gringo. Even if your chicken shit brother is there, you're fucking _mine._ " 

"---where are we going, Vaas?" A dry, unphased response. 

Vaas took a moment, idled his hand down Jason's shoulder and pulled him closer to him. The action was strangely intimate, his fingers gracing across Jason's skin in circular motions that made his spine feel as if it had just been connected to jumper cables. Jason obliged, closing his eyes and waiting. For what he couldn't say but the fear was gone. In its place was something else. Something like excitement.

"---ever heard of a place by the name of Fort Hermes?"


	18. Vermes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vermes (latin) Root word for Vermin, which roughly correlates to the rat. 
> 
> turpis non est quia per naturam venit - what is from nature is not dirty.

For the first time in his fifty-six years, Carlos Del Reyes felt like he had to convince himself he was an important man. His grand contribution to the world was nothing like he had always pictured it. He was not being sworn into a prestigious university, nor was he accepting a peace prize for his discoveries and research. No, he was sitting on an old rickety lawn chair in some underground bunker miles away from anything the world would consider grand.  _ Fort Hermes was as eerie as the legends said. _ On either side of him sat two men of his same affliction.  _ Cold, agitated, impatient.  _ Theirs was a shared condition that would best be described as stressful but none of them inclined to let it show. Despite all his posturing, Carlos couldn't help but feel like he was at a supreme loss. The youngest son of six to a malpractice doctor, Carlos had never held more than a shrug in terms of social status.  _ He could medicate, he could mend, but he could never operate.  _ These were the rules on which he stood by. He would never hold anything higher than the title of a medic, a grave and paling comparison to the two operates at his shoulders. 

_ He had always hated American soldiers.  _ Growing up amidst the cold war, this was nothing but a cultural norm but there was a poignant distaste that sat at Carlos's center like a rotten cherry pit. White men with a title and a partiality for firearms were always a bad omen, no matter where or when you looked in history. This was why he began to hold himself so frigidly, rolling his fingers into palms laden with sweat.  _ C.I.A operative _ sounded like a title worthy of accolades. He had grown up with the mental image of them looking chiseled and wired, beasts collected in black suits and sunglasses that made them all look nearly identical.  _ Like in the movies. _

_ Quite the contrary here _ . Sam Becker and Willis Huntley looked like two extras from two different film sets. Fat-faced and perpetually wearing his piss-colored aviators, Huntley looked like the kind of guy who would try and sell you a used car with no motor. Becker, on the other hand, looked like he should be the lead singer in a travel band. Forever molded into his riot gear and bulletproof vests, one began to wonder if these instruments were not absolutely melded to his skin.  _ Perhaps Sam Becker was made entirely of black leather. _

"---and if we are lucky, we can leave with our skins." Sam Becker's accent made the word  _ skins  _ sound like a snake hissing. Carlos was reminded of the war movies you would find in American arthouse theaters, the kind where the blonde patriarch levies an artillery attack on the nazis. “---time is of the essence,  _ as they say _ .” 

"Nonsense," Huntley said this with a casual wave of his hand, dismissing Becker’s professionalism as informality. Willis Huntely's accent sounded a lot like that typical drawl from a John Wayne flick, his hair sporting that same unwashed shine as he lit a Marlboro in cupped hands. "---our buddy Carlos here has secured us a good nugget of time.  _ Isn't that right? _ " 

Huntley forked over and offered one of his cigarettes, smoke seeping from his nostrils as if he were a dragon guarding his hoard. In their nearly two years of knowing each other, Carlos had never liked Huntley. He was too vagrant, too open. It was like he was trying to be your friend and enemy at the same time. 

" I've got you a distraction,  _ yes.  _ One step closer to seeing this little disaster to its end." Carlos said, looking to Becker who was obviously the more capable. "---and it will end,  _ gentleman.  _ Whether or not you've managed to clean up your country's mess or not." 

Huntley snorted. "---you say that as if it's a mark on our character,  _ Del Reyes. _ Don't forget, Volker's dad served some of your fuckin' politicians too. Least ours were democratically sworn in." 

Becker cut daggers at Huntley, reminding him without words that their cover-up mission was on the no-speaking variety. Huntley seemed not to mind him though, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles over the table in a sense of leisure that was insultingly American. Becker attempted to regain a sense of control of the situation, looking at Carlos with an empathetic look that said  _ Ignore him, he knows not what he does.  _ Carlos almost felt sorry for him. 

"---from the outposts I have served, nearly all American involvement has been digitally stored. Privateers keep files---" Becker paused. 

"---I've burnt what I can." Carlos interrupted, reminiscing on all the American passports and driver's licenses he had destroyed. "---I've also been keeping tabs on the outposts Vaas has taken as well. Pirates, _ at least _ , are shit at bookkeeping." 

"---and how are they in espionage, Del Reyes?" Huntley asked, tossing his head so that the ash would fall onto his breast. "---they any good at planning a coup?" 

"---you underestimate Vaas, Mr. Huntely," Carlos replied. "---he has the same dislike of Volker as we do." 

"Not entirely, Del Reyes. I hate Volker because he is a terrorist and a national threat. Vaas hates Volker because he puts a cap on his drug supply and keeps him in line. To Vaas, losing Volker is like losing a step-dad who put you on a fuckin’ curfew." 

"---which is why he will be eager to make sure Brody does the deed." Becker intervened. "---you set them out to that show party, yes? They went as planned." 

"---with an entourage of five." said Carlos. "---two of which are the Americans he came with." 

"---so they're good as dead." Willis shot back. "---what of the other seven?" 

"---all dead except for the Carswell gringo, the banker, and of course Brody. The blonde girl was taken care of---" 

There was an eerie silence as Carlos recalled the peaceful, almost dream-like way Daisy Lee had gone off to death. He had spiked a tea for her frazzled nerves, laid her down in her bed, and told her that rest would be her best option. He hadn't wanted to do it. Ms. Daisy Lee had a kindness to her that he had not seen since coming here. But the contract he had with the operatives meant that he had to extinguish any and all threats of an outbreak. If some vapid little American made their way back home and caught the ear of a journalist, the ensuing flame would be catastrophic. How would the world deal with the knowledge that a good fifty percent of the missing population ended up trafficked to powerful men across the sea? No, it was best that it all went out quietly. Like a flame deprived of oxygen, the chaos that was to come would happen in one explosion. 

They had been working on this little project of theirs for the good part of a year and a half. Slowly stoking the fires, pointing the aggressions of the privateers and the pirates against each other. Sometimes they would even rally the Rakyat with pirate locations, keeping up that mentality that the entire world was out to get pirates and the only way out was to fight. These men, these horrible pigs would kill each other. Huntley would be happy because fewer ears would be hearing the happenings of Rook. Becker would be happy that he could keep his streak of zero operatives called for backup. Carlos would be happy that it was over. There would be no more boys like Mateo sailing over here in the false hope for a better life. There would be no more girls like Daisy, forced into a corner and caged. This evil, this loss of human life, it was necessary. He told himself that as he stared into the hazy blue of Becker's eyes. 

_ I have done this because the evil men in this world have given me no choice. _

"---so you think Brody's gonna play ball?" Huntley asked, ruining the silence. "---he's probably still after little bro." 

"---I told Vaas to let him believe that the youngest Brody would be at that show party. Vaas finds him--- _ entertaining _ \---he's like a cat with a mouse. I chose Jason for good reason. I'm sure once he's fulfilled his usefulness, Vaas will get tired of him." 

" And Jason's not going to play game for the other court? That little fascination trick doesn't go both ways?" 

Carlos actually laughed at that. "---no. The only thing keeping Vaas alive in Jason's eyes is his hold on his friends. Once he realizes that hold is nonexistent, the two of them are as good as dead. We risk nothing. " 

Carlos gave pause after this, letting his face fall into a chagrin frown that made him look his entire age. He soon realized that the subject matter had caused him some disturbance, made him feel conflicted in all the ways a double agent shouldn't be. It wasn't Jason, he knew, he could care less what befell another trophy child on the wrong side of the map. He realized with budding discomfort that it was Vaas who was giving him so much unease. Vaas had come to him the same age and stage in life as the late Mateo. There were even times when the two of them blended into a cohesive unit, his memories often switching the two off like the blank side in a deck of cards. For they shared that same brass temper, that fiendish attitude that said the world was up against them and it was up to them to beat it into submission. How nice it would have been to save Vaas from himself. Perhaps if he were somewhere else, if Vaas wasn't fed on a diet of violence and mayhem, they could have lived the life they were meant to live.  _ The life he and Mateo were meant to live.  _ Carlos buried all of this, swallowing it down like a pill with no water. He took one of those Marlboros even though it was no longer offered, it was the one still between Huntley's lips. 

"----there's no man alive that would forgive the things Vaas has done." Another pause as Carlos took the smoke in. When he blew out, he imagined expelling all the confliction that was welling within his chest.  _ Let him go. Let Vaas go the same way you let your son go.  _ “---Vaas Montenegro and Jason Brody are two problems that will sort themselves out.” 

  
  


**-X-**

Seventy years ago, Fort Hermes was a bunker used to store and transport Japanese firearms between naval bases. Centuries before that it had been used to immortalize the fallen warriors of the Rakyat, a spiraling crypt that went so deep into the earth there were legends that said it was endless. The failed Spanish colonizers of the eighteenth century would say that it was the opening to hell's gates, _ Satan's doorstep _ if one were to be of the poetic sort. Nowadays you would be hard-pressed not to find some sort of effigy or discarded remain. Skeletons lined the stone walls like sunken-eyed portraits, their date and times of origin as innocuous as their gender. Perhaps a carbon dating archeologist would find his calling here, his services would extend far beyond the reaches of a week or month. The dead vastly outnumbered the living, their numbers doubling each time a loose hooker died of an overdose. Fort Hermes was as much an equalizer as it was a death trap, a forever tomb that treated both native and foreigner alike. 

Nowadays, Fort Hermes had taken up the business it had started in the early twentieth century. There were still firearms that passed here, weapons that were bought and traded upon the black market. But the most lucrative goods that went through were the livestock. Here is where the most prize cattle were kept and transported. Perhaps Volker had sold a young girl of fifteen to a wealthy French member of parliament. Her ivory skin would be untouched by the sun's rays here, her virginity kept intact and far away from the prying hands of any of those responsible for transport. Here is also where the Privateers liked to keep private counsel, the same place Hoyt would brief new recruits. 

The way Vaas had explained it to Jason, attacking Fort Hermes would be a lot like attacking the Hydra's heart. So far, Carlos had been guiding him along the path of taking out the heads. An outpost here, an outpost there, sure it did well in terms of tactic, but the sad truth was that Volker hired new privateers every day. There was a reason the pirates were always vastly outnumbered, there was a reason Vaas was given a set number of fifteen men per separate outpost.  _ Volker must have always seen this sort of insurrection coming.  _ Taking out Fort Hermes would decimate a command center, but it would also mean a huge profit loss. For what are the privateers without their reinforcement? If they have no cattle to push, no more guns to ship to every sector, what is to keep them from dispersing? It was not exactly a secret that Volker paid them all by commission.  _ X amount of money given for X amount of product shipped.  _ Take away the product, you take away the incentive to get paid and stick around the industry. The way Vaas saw it, this was a vast streamline to shedding Volker of all his protective allies. He'd simply have no way to fucking pay them. 

"---if Riley's not here--" Jason started, glaring down at a map that had been folded so many times, the lamination was flaking."---then we can look somewhere else." 

Vaas paused, swiveling his mouth to one side in a look of pure contemplation. Ever since dawn broke, they had been on the mental move. _ Collecting things here, calling things in there.  _ Even though they had never left their little party house on the hill, there had been enough communication done to move a small army from the West side of the island to the North. From what Jason could understand, Vaas had already been thinking about plans of action from the moment he had stepped out of bed. On the map, Fort Hermes looked like a red, threatening snake looming beneath the slopes of hills.  _ A sleeping beast.  _

_ "You  _ can look somewhere else," Vaas answered _.  _ "I'm shit at hide-n-seek, hermano. But I can give you two or three countries that would be good places to fucking look. A head start."

Jason felt as if someone had put a lead bullet in his mouth and forced him to swallow. His stomach felt gravid, heavy, lined with metal. He couldn't particularly figure out why he had assumed that Vaas would be willing to find Riley at all costs but the thought had just come naturally. There was an innate, juvenile impulse that told him the people that he slept with became more or less enamored by him. Like two magnetic plates, they melded together and became one.  _ One working mind that wanted the same thing. _ Sex was the glue, the intimacy that held them together. He had Liza staying over to fold his laundry by round two and Citra only started to look on him favorably after their first round of temple fucking. Why, by all reason, would he assume Vaas was any different? 

_ Because the people you're with are supposed to be like that. They are supposed to want what you want. They are supposed to want to help you.  _

Jason found this inner monologue revolting, even more so when he reasoned where it had come from. He shuddered at the inclination of it, cast his eyes up and away from Vaas as if attempting to purge every trace of him from memory.  _ The people you are with are supposed to be like that. What the fuck did that mean?  _ There was no mutual companionship between the two of them, they were enemies, but the lines in the sand were starting to be pushed by the tide.  _ Enemies don't fuck the way we just did. Enemies don't kiss you gingerly on the neck while they push their dick deeper into you. An enemy doesn't let you lie on his chest for an hour after the deed, running his fingers through your hair as you leech off his body heat. And as an enemy, you're not supposed to let him do it. You're not supposed to crave for him to touch you again, you're not supposed to hope he has the good graces to allow you the privilege of an encore performance. But the word lover is a fucking farce too, right? Here is the man who destroyed your entire life and put one brother in the ground.  _

**_What are you to me?_ **

Oliver, as if hearing Jason's thoughts through radio wave, was looking at Jason like the gum he had stepped in trying to get to homeroom. He was primarily in shadow, half in and out of the doorway but Jason could see it.  _ Contempt. _ Contempt was lining his best friend's face as he stared at him through the hallway that led out of the kitchen. 

**_What are you to me?_ **

"---fucking idiota,  _ cocksucker _ ! " Vaas hit David on the side of the head and did it _ hard. _ David, just as shocked as Jason, looked back at Vaas like a dog who had just been kicked by his master. 

"---but boss---everyone else is moving in position so why not---" 

" The fuckers on main compound are staying put, understand? You call who I tell you to fucking call." Vaas spat, snatching David's walkie-talkie away. 

"---Daisy's on main compound." Jason breathed, finally back on the right train of thought. "---leaving it unguarded could mean--" 

"Do you like shit pie, Jason?" 

"---what?" 

" _ Shit, Caca, Mierda.  _ Do you like eating shit?" 

"---no?" 

" Okay, some philosophical advice for you, amigo. You order from a restaurant ran by rats you get shit fucking pie. Once,  _ shame on them.  _ Twice? Well, then you're a fucking shit-eater, you get me?" Vaas tossed his hand in that vagrant attitude of his. David scrunched his nose up, looked to Jason for clarification. Chewie very audibly laughed from his place at the table. 

"---aren't you tired of eating shit, Jason?" Vaas asked, taking a pen that sat just behind his ear and circling the openings of Fort Hermes.  _ The snake's gaping maw.  _

All the while Jason's mind passed over Paolo and Francisco's memory like a searchlight over two seaborne boats. They had been friendly faces, welcomed changes of pace that made him feel grounded in a world with no gravity. Before them there was Citra, pieous and ready. She had told him what he wanted to hear, told him he was special. Before she came there was the legion of his professors and former teachers.  _ His mother. His girlfriend. _ They had urged him to pour himself into things that felt like work, projects that toiled his mental stamina like an imaginary relay race. He always needed someone to push him, always waited until someone set the fire under him to get him running.  _ They were all rats, they were serving him up bullshit and Jason had just been desperate enough to eat it up. _ He hated how quickly he was able to connect the dots, hated how he needed so little in the way of context to get what the fuck Vaas was saying. In fact, it took very little to understand Vaas these days, even less to tolerate him. 

_ You aren't supposed to understand your enemies, you're not supposed to get their stupid fucking jokes.  _

**_What am I to you?_ ** __

“---where do we start?” Jason finally said, ignoring the excited, almost pleased way Vaas was looking at him. 

He had to stop himself from smiling back. 

**-X-**

Citra had had this little device for a little over a week now. Since then she seldom let it leave her sight. This small inconspicuous thing had once been Jason's lifeline. She could picture him in some far off cave, balled up and frigid. He'd hold this little walkie-talkie up to his ear and wait for the voice on the other end. Never her voice, she had Dennis for that sort of thing, but Jason had been seeking her guidance none the less.  _ He used to be so complacent, so tame. _ He'd follow her orders without question, answer her demands with an eager nod of the head.  _ Like a mutt greeting its master, a hunting dog with fixed balls _ . Citra found she had liked the way he had looked at her the most, she had liked the way he seemed to gape at every bat of her lashes or turn of her hips. 

_ He had loved her. Truly. He had loved her the way earthly men are supposed to love earthly women. He loved her the way Vaas pretended to.  _

That didn't matter now. She told herself this as she caught wind of another frequency passing. Jason had done well intercepting all those radio towers because a lot of them still caught pirate frequencies. It was very rarely anything interesting, just news of some shipment of whores or drugs. Even now, long after she had accepted his abandonment, she couldn’t help but listen for her brother’s voice. It had been nearly two years since she had heard it, so long in fact she wondered if she would even recognize it. Even if she did, what would she do? Listen to him talk of money or drugs? Click over and speak to him? And say what? Apologize? She had nothing to be sorry for. He should know his place.  _ He was hers and she was his.  _

Regardless, she was a very particular person. All things in this universe had a beginning, middle and end. She had never really gotten this with her brother. Yes, things had been turbulent in the middle, but the end had come in the form of her standing out on the steps of her temple with a bruised tailbone and a look that said  _ help me. _ No one had ever struck her before. No one had ever grabbed her with hands that meant to harm her. One could imagine her surprise when it was her brother who had done it, the very person she had been brought up to believe was meant to protect her. The last thing she saw of him, the last thing she could remember as she brought that knife down past the side of his head, was that he looked frightened. He had looked the same way her birds had in girlhood, the eyes so wide they almost looked like an eclipsed sun. She had been more shocked than outraged, more dismayed than angry. 

_ This was not the way it was supposed to happen, this was not the way things were supposed to pan out.  _

"---the boss says the white boy scoped out the area." The voice on the walkie-talkie was disgustingly American, it opened up fresher wounds that had not been able to heal. It reminded her of betrayal number two.

_ Jason Brody.  _

Punishing Jason brought her a lot less pleasure than it had with Vaas. Jason had  _ honestly _ hurt her. He had hurt her in a way no one ever had before. She had heard whiffs of town girl gossip, known lightly of the trivia of their boring lives. Old, undesirable women would groan about unfaithful husbands. Their men would replace them with younger, more dynamic models, like trading up for a better car. They'd sigh and tend to the dumpling steamers, bemoan the children that would arise from their husband's infidelity, and be there to coach the younger women through birth. This was how she felt when she had learned Liza Snow was going around asking about medicinal herbs for expecting mothers. 

Jason had already gone ahead and replaced her, Jason had made her the old crone woman of the village. His punishment had to be more concise. With Vaas, she had years to perfect her technique. His scars were earned per offense so he at least had time to heal for the next one. Jason, on the other hand, got her every ire. She marked him with the same scars she had given Vaas because they were one and the same. 

_ The boss said that the white boy surveyed the area.  _

_ They are both alive. They are alive, working together and continue to shame me.  _

The only thing left of Liza Snow that could not be found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean was the braided collection of the hair she once kept so steadfastly at the nape of her neck. Citra had tied it with herbs and medicinal leaves, purifying it to the best of her abilities. She draped it over her knuckles and palmed it in her fist so hard she felt pain bite into her skin where the wiry stands began to dig. 

_ The hair of a pregnant woman brings fertility to the next, isn't that what her mother said?  _

"---Fort Hermes by sundown. When the shifts change--" Said the American, fading out. 

"---Fort Hermes?" Dennis called, still hanging about her chambers like an unexercised spirit. "---there is no such a place on our island." 

"Tangihanga." Citra replied, correcting him. "---the land where our ancestors lie." 

She hated the disgust that sprang on Dennis's face, the hatred that gleamed beneath it. As if he had a stake in all this, as if it were _ his _ beloved dead being unearthed. 

_ I have no one else now. I only have him. _

"---but why would Vaas send his men there?" 

"Because the giant has tasted the sky. Now he wants the earth that made it." 

There was silence between them now, a quiet that made her insides squirm even though there was no child there to do so. She would never have her heir, she would never fulfill her purpose. She failed. Vaas and Jason made her fail.  _ They both need to pay. They both need to die.  _

"---send all able-bodied men out to the shore that surrounds Tangihanga."

"---Citra?" 

"They are to wait until they hear the gunfire stop, prepare, and then attack the survivors." 

"---I do not understand---" 

"You do not have to because I understand. I know my brother." 

Vaas had been a point of contention for Citra and Dennis, you could see by the way his brow started to narrow. He attempted to come to her, his hand ready to touch her in his idea of comfort but she raised her head too quickly.  _ She was down, she was beaten, but she was not desperate.  _ Dennis was not her warrior, Dennis would not take her like some washed out village crone. Dennis was still her foot soldier. The fact that he still expected he’d ever become more was proof of his insolence. 

"---Dennis." She said, attempting to sound soft and caring. "---I want you to lead them." 

"---Citra---" 

"The tattau has lead you well, you are ready." 

"--- _ Citra _ \--" 

"They cannot be allowed to live, Dennis." She resumed, pressing the walkie-talkie into his hand. This was the only physical contact she had ever, in all these years of knowing him, allowed. "---you are strong, powerful. You will lead them to greatness." 

Dennis was actually crying now, his lips pressed flat in a wistful closed smile that made her realize just how much older he really was. _ He disgusted her.  _ Because he could not kiss her hand, he kissed the last thing it touched. His mouth pressed twice onto the receiver of the walkie-talkie, held there between his hands as if it were a divine object of prayer. 

"---thank you, Citra. Thank you." 

She didn't turn to elevate his praise. She had quite honestly had her fill of him. She was tired of men and their lies, tired of men and their broken promises. For the first time, the warrior goddess of the Rakyat was well and truly exhausted. At this point, she didn't care who went first. Vaas, Jason, or Dennis. Whoever died would be doing so deservedly. When this was over, when whatever was apt to happen happened, she would return to her people with clear eyes. There would be no more hurt in her heart, no more contempt in her mind. She would be free to lead her people and the generation after them into the world their ancestors had made for them. 

_ Yes, she would be free. Finally, she would be free.  _

As she rounded the corridors back into her private chambers, she passed by all the relics Jason had dug up from the ocean for her. They were all lined up next to each other like warriors at proper attention. _ Men in their rightful place. _ Beside one of them, a shark formed clay figure with a double-headed maw, there was a mass of what looked like black needles. She thought of urchins and deep sea creatures, oracles from her childhood stories. She came nearer to it, hands pressed studiously behind her back. Upon closer inspection, she realized it was nothing more than a rat that had come in from the outside. A horrible black thing with pink feet and a long thin tail. It sat cleaning its face, turned to her and scampered off with the quickness and ease of a gazelle. It left in its wake three kernels of feces before the relic, offerings for her dead gods. 

"--- _rats._ " She droned to herself, not bothering to clean it up. "---there are always _rats._ " 


	19. Ad Infernum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ad Infernum (latin) - To Hell.

By midday, the sun was already at its highest peak, a blaring angry devil that sat in the middle of the sky like a vindictive tyrant. Here was a king who treated all his disciples equally, beating down on their shoulders with equal temperament, lighting their world with enough light to help them see but blinding them while doing so. Jason craned his neck, rolling his muscles under one hand as it came back laden with sweat. _Now he understood why the pirates were always complaining about the heat._ How quiet it was now that none of them were around to moan about it. The lack of gunfire, the banal push and pull of the ocean crashing over the shore, it was almost enough for him to forget all that had happened here. He almost forgot what would be happening in seven hours' time, what he would have to do. 

_How tragic it was that such awful things happened on a beautiful piece of land. Nature's bounty was truly wasted here._

"---that's fucking cheating." Jason sighed, watching Vaas draw another misplaced X over his O. They had time to kill, waiting for some much-needed artillery from the compound over this one. They were stuck here waiting for men who did nothing but kill time, so they might as well murder some of their own. 

"There she is, _my sweet fucking princess._ Crying over sand, poor Snow White." Vaas crooned.

Jason threw down the unloaded rifle, ruining the X he marked on the sand. "---if you want to be X, you need to say so before we start." 

Vaas grinned at him, hands crossed underneath his chin as he leaned it against the shovel he had just used to draw his lines in the sand. "---ah, _but my way is fucking better._ If I am X and O, I never lose. It's process of elimination, you know? Logic at its fucking finest." 

_Actually, it wasn't a process of elimination. It was just being a dick._

Jason realized he didn't have the mental strength to argue with him, not on something like this anyway. The bizarre nature of the situation was just too comical to really engage with, like something out of a satire novel or a penny comic. When Jason had learned they would have to wait here for god knows how long, he had honestly mentioned the game as a farce. Of course, that was a mistake because Vaas too often took everything as a fucking challenge. So here they were now, hours away from a huge recon mission playing a kid's game in the sand like a couple of field tripping grade-schoolers. Chewie, David, and the rest of the collecting troop were lounging on their jeep, swapping cigarettes and inside jokes like the chaperones of the school trip. If Jason could close his eyes, maybe he would open them to find the past few months were nothing but some bad dream, the aftermath of too many Adderall tablets before a big test. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again. 

_No. Still here. Still royally fucked._

As usual, he sought to distract himself, thought to bury the unpleasantness with something compulsive. Something he could obsess over with the incredulity of a shameless addict. This was a vacancy that was once filled with things like long hiking trips, vacation spots, and potential skydiving points. Now it felt like all he ever thought about, all he ever wondered or planned for, was Vaas. 

_What are you thinking?_

_Where are you going?_

_When will you come back?_

Jason’s eyes glanced over towards that jeep, caught sight of the short tuff of blonde hair that stuck out of the passenger side. Oliver was there, laying on his back in the shade. Ever since Keith had died, Jason hadn’t heard him speak. _Nothing_. Not even a clearing of his throat or an imparting chuckle. Oliver, for all extensive purposes, had died with Keith. 

_And the fucked up part? Oliver didn't even fucking like Keith._

_Bury it. Think of something else._

“---how have you never played tic-tac-toe before?” Jason asked, quickly looking back at Vaas who had already rubbed out their game board from the sand. 

“Is this how you get pussy back in the states, Jason? You draw lines in the fucking sand?” 

“---uh no? I mean, we used pen and paper when we were kids.”

_Riley was always X,_ but he made a mental note not to say this out loud. It too, was a painful subject. It felt better to bring everything back to Vaas, bring it back to a more appealing mental topic. 

“---you weren’t doing dumb shit to pass the time when you were a kid?” 

Vaas paused, kicked the shovel’s metal maw into the sand so that it stood up on its own. Admittedly the thought of Vaas having a childhood was terrifying. Perhaps he had fallen from Zeus's head like the late Athena, fully formed and functioning in his current state like the pearls from clams. Nevertheless, the question was conveniently unanswered. This was a behavioral pattern forming its distinctive trail. Jason noticed whenever he asked him too personal of a question, Vaas appeared to run out of words to say. It was this _thing_ he did when looking to change a subject. While most people simply spoke on a different topic, Vaas just went on ignoring the entire conversation. It was like he heard you but actively chose not to fucking listen, going willfully deaf. 

" Where are you going?" Jason asked, feeling partially panicked when Vaas turned his back to him. Being ignored by Vaas was worse than having to deal with him mid-temper tantrum. Jason realized, with horrific clarity, that he would rather have Vaas screaming at him than ignoring him. It was another one of those moments of reflection that made him shutter, a setback of self-revulsion. 

" I won, I'm going to go have a cigarette," Vaas answered, already walking toward the shore. His tone was terribly dry, dismissive. It gave Jason an impromptu panic that kicked into his insides with enough vigor to make him feel like puking. 

_Fix this._

_Change the subject._

_Get back in his good graces._

_Quicky._

“ No, you didn’t fucking win. You cheated.” 

Vaas shrugged, grinned. “---it's the same fucking thing.”

Jason felt a wave of calm rush over him, a reprieve he could only equate to putting out a match before it hit the tips of his fingers. At the same time, he couldn't help but feel a touch of resentment. Vaas had had the luxury of knowing almost every intimate detail of Jason's life, most of which was given to him willingly. Jason had told Vaas very private information without having to be asked to. It was an act that was surprisingly easy, like shouting off the items of a grocery list.

_Here is my greatest trauma, my father’s death._

_Here is also my fear of losing my brother, my lack of loyalty and my unwillingness to change_. 

All of this had been laid at Vaas’s feet, offerings he had taken with the disinterest and discrepancy of a cat receiving subpar playthings. In return, he offered stipends of information about his forsaken heritage, scraps that came only in necessity and context. 

What bothered Jason most was that he wanted to know more, wanted to understand Vaas as intimately as he appeared to understand him. What disturbed him that he never had put this kind of effort into anyone else. Not Liza, not Oliver, not Grant. Knowing them had been easy, understanding them just as so. _Ask and one shall receive, yes? That’s how he had dated Liza for as long as he had._ Impossible, if Jason ever so much as asked for clarification, Vaas would go on about asking for a fucking cigarette. Thus the reason he had taken to carrying something on hand. A cigar, a cigarette, anything that Vaas could put between his lips so that he could go on not talking about whatever he wasn't keen on talking about. 

_Because despite everything, he knew Vaas. He knew how he worked._

When Jason finally caught up with Vaas, he was already sitting by the beach, eyes lidded and calm as he watched the pull and push of the ocean. When Jason offered him a cigarette, the same set they had shared in that red room, Vaas looked surprised. Jason smiled at this, eased himself beside him and felt grateful for the small time in space they had been given. A moment to think on Rook is more precious than any gold or silver, it is invaluable. Vaas took the cigarette, lit it with the same lighter he had pushed into Jason’s breast pocket right before plummeting him into a ravine. How ironic it was being returned to him in such a casual way. _It was almost funny._

They sat this way for a quarter of a minute, side by side smoking as the tide pulled in and out on the shores like a dog lapping its water bowl. Self-consciousnessly, Jason looked behind him to see if they were being watched or if the cavalry had arrived. Luck was on his side, they were alone but not as alone as he would like. Oliver could come up with his dead fish expression and stare at him with those accusatory eyes, those eyes that said Jason had failed him and they weren’t friends anymore. Chewie could come over and tell them their plans were foiled and there was a privateer attack on the way. 

_The two of them_ _,_ _the only important people left on the island, could be interrupted._

"---what happens? After this, after _like--everything_ , what happens?" The words came out of him like the blood welling from a new cut, a natural progression that brought the same pain. Even though he hated to think of the answer, it felt good to ask the question. He was putting the power elsewhere, making someone else beholden of the future and all its treacherous possibilities. 

" I don't know." Vaas's response came just as naturally, twice faster it seemed.

It wasn't what Jason wanted to hear, but at the very least he could say he expected it. This was the way life was, afterall. It took him twenty-five years, four in a state credentialed college, to realize that no one in the grand scheme of life had any idea what they were doing. _Not his teachers, not his guidance counselors, not his parents._

"---and if he's not there?" Jason started, wishing rather childishly for some form of comfort. "---what if Riley isn't there---" 

"Then he's somewhere else."

"---and we find him---" 

"You know, Jason it's very funny how easily you forget things." Vaas responded, forcing his cigarette into the sand with an angry slam of his palm. Jason hadn't seen this side of him for a while, it seemed. _This irrational, pig-headed sadist._ He almost hated himself for bringing it out again, feeling like he had conjured up some demon or invited the vampire into his house. 

"---what is it, _what is it?_ Selective fucking memory, willful ignorance? Did I not fucking say, did you not hear with your bitch boy ears, that that little shit changes nothing for you? You aren't leaving this fucking island, Jason. Whatever happens, hermano, you're fucking dying here. _Today, Tomorrow, the fucking next._ These things don't matter to you. " 

Jason didn't have to look at Vaas to know that he was glaring at him, throwing himself on hands and knees to come over and beat some sense into Jason if the need arose. Dimly he remembered all the times his mother had caught him and Riley mid-spat. The way she would always clear her throat as all librarians do, resting her hands over jean-clad hips in the way only she could.

_Be the bigger person, don't fall for his tricks. He wants a reaction from you._

"---but you could do it, right? With Hoyt gone, with Citra gone, we could---I _don't know---_ go someplace else. You could see something other than palm trees and sand. The snow, mountains, fucking buildings---" 

The silence that followed was deafening, made only worse by the intrusion of the ocean wailing away in its quiet tumble, giving and taking at the land. He didn't have to be a psychic to know what Vaas was thinking, to guess his next response. 

_He thinks this a ploy to get what I want, he thinks this another setup or trick. He doesn't trust anyone, why would I, of all fucking people, be any different?_

Regardless of what the outcome could be, Jason chanced a look at Vaas, fully expecting a fist to his jaw or a barrage of insults. What he found instead was a look that painfully reminded him of Citra. Vaas's eyes were trained toward the ocean though his face was still pointed at Jason. Clear thought, brows laden with that cathartic intrigue that made one think the speaker is closing upon revelation. It had been the look Citra wore when she had first told him of her brother's betrayal, the only thing in life that had ever truly hurt her. This, he soon realized, was of that same nature. While Citra pined away on the absence of her brother, Vaas sat around kicking himself for never leaving. Those striking similarities, the mannerism one adopts from the natural osmosis of close proximity. _Riley wrinkles his nose when he laughs, a tick he learned from Grant._ The comparison made him nauseous as if close to faint. 

_We are all the same._

_Everyone._

_We are all equally fucked._

“Did Citra ever tell you about the Pakina tribe?” Vaas’s voice was back to a ritualistic calm, Citra’s manner of speaking. It was that eerie frigid way a dentist might tell you _this will only pinch a little._ Jason hated it.

“The _what_?” Jason responded, kicking himself for forgetting how quickly Vaas could dodge a question. 

“Pakina tribe. The first Rakyat family to drop shit and make it for the ocean. Mother, Father, two sons.” 

“---no.” 

“They turned to ash as soon as they paddled their happy fucking asses out past the reefs. That’s why we have seafoam. It’s the ocean returning them home. ” 

Jason gave pause, stared at Vaas with true unbridled disbelief. “---you don’t want to leave because---you think you’ll turn into seafoam?” 

“---you're _real_ fucking stupid, you know that? A fucking dumbass. ” Vaas sneered, smacking Jason upside the head. “Context, Jason. For once in your fucking life _think_. The story means order. The universe puts us where we are to keep balance.” 

“---so fate? You’re not leaving because you feel fate put you here.” 

“Again, amigo, context. I’ve seen what happens to people who leave their own fucking islands, _fucking wanderlust and shit._ I mean--- _honey_ \--look what happened to you.” Vaas grinned when he saw Jason’s teeth set on edge, a wordless confirmation that he had indeed won the argument. 

“---so _what_? We live here, counting fucking coconuts and shooting pigs?” Jason retorted, feeling angry. 

“---or we take you back to the states. You live on chump change paying off your shit degree. Grow old, fucking fat, lose your hair and live for Modellos on the weekend.” 

“---or we find my fucking brother.” 

“Chasing smoke across the globe, chasing your tail back home. Again, Jason, you fail to realize the fucking context. Monotony to the greatest degree, doing the same thing over and over again. Expecting shit to change.” 

“Insanity.” Jason finished, not giving Vaas the satisfaction of fucking quoting one of his dumb ass monologues. The contement was already there on Vaas’s face though, cracking his face into a smile. 

" _Dios mio_ , you _do_ fucking listen! A revelation!"

"Fuck you, Vaas." 

"It's okay, hermano. It's okay. You know why? You need to fucking chill, relax sometimes. Don't worry so much, it's bad for the complexion." 

_Of course he would say something like that._

Vaas had nothing to lose here, had nothing at stake. Jason let his eyes travel farther to the medium point of the horizon, a speedboat was just collecting there. They were still far away but Jason could just see the vague shape of men, stick figures with their arms raised. Chewie was walking toward them, shouting in some heavy dialect Jason couldn't really place to a country. He looked happy, excited. This was the first time Jason had ever seen him in such a way. 

" Hey, Jason? _Peekaboo, motherfucker._ " 

And Jason was fully expecting to see a barrel there, a gun pointed straight between the eyes. In a way, he imagined it would be welcomed, a reprieve from what was to come. _Everything would be over, everything would be solved._ But what he found there was probably just as dangerous, just as dreaded. Vaas leaned in close to him, pupils blown out and rimmed gold like a cat's. One arm juxtaposed behind Jason's back, supporting his weight as the other grabbed roughly at the American's jaw. He brushed his lips over Jason's, an invitation that had Jason feeling magnetized as he instantly pressed his mouth forward. The kiss was so unlike the ones before, quick, dry, impartial. It left Jason a feeling of unsatiated lust, a want and need to press further. He did to the best of his ability, his traitorous body leaning forward even when Vaas had long since retracted. He stole the cigarette Jason had forgotten he was holding, leaned backward, and on his back. 

"For good luck." He said, not caring how his new position was fucking impossible for Jason to move from. Jason had no choice but to join him, the cloud above him looked like a man running in place, flames at his feet. 

"I've had enough fucking luck." Jason said, thumbing the necklace still at his chest. 

"Whatever, bitch. Fuck you then." Vaas placed the cigarette between his lips, blew smoke. 

"Another thing, Jason. Don't ask me about leaving again." He paused, took another drag. " It'll be a shame if you have to lose your fucking tongue before we've even found a good use for it." 

Behind them, Oliver laid back down, no longer looking out at the two figures lying on the beach. He tried not to think of what it all meant, what would become of his friend. He wondered, most obsessively, what dying would be like and how much he didn’t want to do it. If there was a heaven, would he be going? 

_How long until all this is over?_

  
  


**-X-**

_This was all going well._

_Too well._

Main compound was doing surprisingly well at bullshitting intercom calls. One to the privateers, telling them all about shipments from Kyrat that were forged. And another, private server that went right toward the walkie-talkie they had found on Jason. The one connected to Citra. Vaas was already getting word of Rakyat warriors moving south toward Fort Hermes, the coming dusk transitioning the day crew with the night the moment the waves stopped reflecting sunlight. If Vaas knew his sister, and he undoubtedly did, she would tell her men to keep a low profile and wait for stragglers. If she took the bait, and he was truly hoping she did, she would assume the pirates were hot on the trails of some new ambush. She thought them weak, stupid, incapable of things like forgery and set up. Riding their coattails would be the logical thing to do, her smaller army taking out as much of the enemy as possible. 

This was the reason why he had visited the fort when he did, the presentation party allowing him the ease to catch and study the layout of the building on top for any signs of secondary fire or backup. Vaas had also managed to snag the Intel of the transitory teams and their respective ranks, _who would be where and with what._ It hadn't been exactly easy to understand but he had been given help when David had told him the differences between military and standard time. The bastards of Fort Hermes were less staffed at night when they knew the Panthers would be hunting, the docks and surrounding areas locking up behind electric fences that were so high, ten men would have to stand on each other's shoulders just to reach up. This was why he had planted his two agents when he did, two disguised pirates who were able to tell him both the behavioral patterns of his intended target and any suspicions that were raised. 

Their final job, whether they lived or died, would be to sit on the rifle towers with their heatseekers and look for the bodies in the trees. They would shoot first, knowing that no one of their affiliation would be waiting at such a vantage point, and the prideful Rakyat would take it as a challenge. What followed would be a bloodbath, a reckless abandon of wits as attention would be turned away from the lower bowels of fort Hermes and up toward the trees. Security protocol would take place, and Vaas's friendly agents would have already disabled the cameras that looked upon the cave underneath Fort Hermes. By boat, they would have an entrance, a half shell kind of mouth that would lead them deep into the earth where they could kill and destroy as much Volker property as they could. Vaas would lead even more men into the marked spaces of their maps, tunnels that could be found under random trees and rock enclosures. He had been here as a boy, a right that was his and his sister’s alone. They had made a game of it every summer solstice. _Race past the dead monarchs, see who gets to the freshest grave first._

"---what is this?" Jason asked, bringing a hand to his ear as it began to pop from the change of pressure.

"Tangihanga." Vaas answered, knowing fully well that Jason would have no grasp on what the word meant. “--- _well_ , it fucking used to be.”

Their voices made an uncomfortable echo, the hardened interior of calcified earth throwing the sounds about like the reverb of an auditorium. Somewhere in the world, a singer was pitching her voice to reach just a height. She would be envious of the echoics here, the natural and formidable way the voice seemed to linger. Without thinking, he stopped himself from his track, forcing Jason to collide into his back with another one of his bitch boy whining sounds. 

Above them, splayed out like a spider, was the white mass of a skull embroidered with polished shell. The goddess before Citra, his mother, and over twenty women before that. Here was a sacred place, a somber reminder that there's was a culture that stretched farther back than any of them could possibly realize. 

_And I'm about to fuck it all up._

_I'm about to ruin all of it._

"---what's the hold up?" Jason demanded, looking up at the skull. He grimaced at the sight, threw a look over his shoulder toward Chewie who whistled and said something about cool interior design. 

_Of course, you don't understand._

_You never understand anything._

Nevertheless, he brought out what it was Jason would be asking for next. A map. A map of all of Fort Hermes and its pitfalls and tricks. He placed it on Jason's chest, pushing him backward. 

“--- _now_?” 

“You only have this one fucking chance so don’t fuck this up.” He warned, urging Jason with his encumbered hand. “---this is what you came here for, this is what you wanted to do.” 

They had brought only flashlights, the torches here had long since lost any muster, so Jason's expression was hardly readable. He moved with a touch of imbalance, brought his hands over the fine paper and attempted to read. 

" There are nine caves here. Nine different places where Volker could have stashed your brother--" 

"---nine?" 

"Let me fucking finish--" Vaas pushed a hand into Jason's face, suppressed a laugh when he heard him grunt. "Each one's gonna be different because it caters to a different taste, a different customer." 

"Which one is which?" Jason asked, still unable to read the map. 

"That doesn't matter. What matters is you're going to have about two hours to look through and find what you can. If you do, fucking spectacular. You don't? Well, you count your losses." 

"---count my losses." 

" This place is going up in smoke, hermano. _The big boom._ If you want my advice and you still like being a hero, you take who you want and run. Anyone who is too fucked up to move, anyone who isn't worth your time, you go. _You don't pussyfoot._ You don't fucking cry. You run. You make it to the top and you wait for me to come get you." 

Jason gave an unnatural pause, Chewie was behind them placing the first line of C4 that would collapse Volker's party house and office into the earth. Oliver was still beside him, standing close like a leech who had just tucked into a swimmer's elbow. Vaas felt halfway bad that this would be Jason's only support on his death mission but there was honestly no men to spare. _Now was the time for action._

"---and that goes for your fucking friend too. If he gets cute, if he can't cut it, you fucking leave." 

"---when I get Riley, you'll come for us?" 

Behind them, men were talking in what sounded like gibberish, code times for detonation, and the next plan of action. Most of them would be dead by the time this was all over. Vaas knew that, they knew that, he wondered if Jason did. He wondered if Jason, in all his brazen effort and willpower, understood that more than just _the bad guys_ would be dying tonight. It could be one of them, it could be Volker. Anyone. 

_And the sun would rise in the morning, the earth would keep turning._

"I did all the work for you, Jason." Vaas warned, gesturing to Chewie to give Oliver the walkie-talkie that would link him to Jason for the rest of the evening. "If you follow my orders, if you follow my map, we're simpatico. We got it." 

"---but will you wait for us?" Jason started, letting two pirates shoulder past him with loaded dynamite. "---can you wait for me?" 

" I don't wait for dead men, Jason." Vaas replied, slapping Chewie on the back when he passed. "If you don't show up when it's time to leave, I'm assuming the worst." 

Vaas didn't have to see Jason to know that there was hurt in his eyes, a falter in his step that told him he was considering running in the direction he came. For in reality, no one would blame him for such a thing. Fear was natural, it was becoming, it was sometimes the only thing that kept men like them alive. 

"---you don't have to do this shit, you know," Vaas said, grabbing another package of C4. "You don't have to keep busting your ass for other people. It's okay to be fucking selfish, amigo. It’s okay to want to live." 

"---I have to try," Jason mumbled, his voice an octave too low for someone just on the brink of accepting heroism. "---I have to try for Riley." 

Vaas tried to find a place inside himself to respect that, a modicum that said it was honorable and worthwhile to die for a loved one. But the selfish part of his brain told him that this could not be done, it told him that he ought to drag Jason out of this hellhole by the root of his hair and force him to live. _He is mine. He is mine._ There was a sense, in all vagueness, that told him this was what Jason wanted him to do. Jason wanted Vaas, to once again, take control of the situation. He wanted him to be the villain to his anti-hero. 

_Not this time, sweetheart. You fuck your own shit up._

“Very beautiful, Snow White.”

Time was running out, the clock was ticking and Jason had just grabbed Vaas by the wrist. They were moving through the darkness, deeper into the earth and the fork in the road that would separate them until detonation. Vaas led him for as long as he could, bracing himself for whatever last-minute surprises the great Snow White had in store. None came though. The last he saw of Jason Brody, he had pulled the necklace from under his shirt and held it in a tight fist. He looked determined, distant, a million miles away. 

_For Good Luck._

“----well, goodbye, Vaas.” Oliver had said. “---besides the whole _trafficking_ thing, you were pretty cool.” 

“Shut the fuck up, white boy.” Vaas responded and the group dispersed. 

  
  


**-X-**

They had spent a long time in silence, long enough for the stench of mildew and moss to lose its pungency. Never would have Jason thought that he would miss the smell of the jungle, the soft exhaust of the ocean breeze. It reminded him of being locked in that chamber, the concrete room where Carlos had tended to his ruined back. Everything that had ever happened seemed like a lifetime away, California even farther. 

"---you don't have to go with me, Oliver," Jason said, catching the first sign of artificial light at the end of the tunnel. Vaas had allowed him a rucksack of supplies. A handgun, a bowie knife and a machete. Firearms were to be kept at a low, they couldn’t afford any extra attention. "---I'm sure you can catch up with the others." 

For a good while, there was no response, only the shuffling of feet as they tried and failed to gain footing on uneven ground. 

"---do you want me to leave, Jason?" Oliver's voice sounded tepid, almost worse for wear. "---do you want to be down here by yourself?" 

"No." The first honest answer Jason had given without any dressing or preface since this whole mess had started. "---but I don't want you going down for this. I don't want any more people paying for my fuck-ups." 

Oliver mused for a second, hand lining the side of the wall. "---you know we never blamed you for any of this. Daisy doesn't. Keith didn't." A pause. "---neither did Grant." 

Silence as they moved closer, a stop in pace to survey how close the clutter of voices were. They were close to the precipice of room nine, the heat of lit flame and the sound of something metallic churning a whiplash from the near eight minutes of pure silence. 

"---I'm not gonna leave you, man," Oliver whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. "---and you won't leave me." 

That last bit sounded almost like an open-ended question, an invitation for Jason to finish. In reality, Oliver could not begin to understand the lengths of which his best friend had changed, the circumstances that led him to behave the way he did with Vaas on the beach. He decided then to think in rudimentary terms, small bite-sized kernels of reason that lead to similar action. He attempted to go back to a time when things were easier, when everything made sense. Childhood. 

_My best friend needs me and I need him._

"---we're gonna make it out of here, Oliver," Jason said, not bothering to turn to look at him. "---I swear to you. I'm gonna get you home." 

Oliver squeezed Jason's shoulder, smiled even though no one could see him do it. The act brought him great pain, a burning feeling. 

"---I know you will, man. You always come through." 

Thus the two Californian rejects became the first free men to see the interior of room number nine.


End file.
